


You're my river running high

by dwellingondreams



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Arranged Marriage, Canon Divergence - Robert's Rebellion, Canonical Character Death, Childbirth, F/M, Family, Family Drama, Family Feels, Female Friendship, Female Ned Stark, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Genderswap, Half-Siblings, House Stark, House Tully, Male Catelyn Tully Stark, Miscarriage, POV Alternating, POV Catelyn Stark, POV Ned Stark, POV Third Person, Parenthood, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Sexism, Period-Typical Underage, Pre-A Game of Thrones, Pregnancy, Present Tense, R Plus L Equals J, Riverrun, Robert's Rebellion, Role Reversal, Sibling Bonding, Siblings, Time Skips, Tourney at Harrenhal, Winterfell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2019-11-06 05:12:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 35,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17933501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwellingondreams/pseuds/dwellingondreams
Summary: "Be the water where I'm wading."- Lykke LiKermit Tully, known to all but his lord father as Ser Kit, sits besides his flushed, giddy sister, talking and laughing with the other lordlings around him. He sits straight and tall, and his coppery hair gleams in the torchlight. Eddara is struck by his high cheekbones and the smile on his face; he appears genuinely intrigued by everything said to him. More than anything, for an instant, she wants a boy like Kit Tully to look at her like that.(Edda Stark meets Kit Tully at Harrenhal, and for an instant, life is like the sweet, sad songs her sister loves.)





	1. Eddara I

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a much shorter, simpler, and happier fic than what I usually write for ASOIAF. It will be focused mainly on the relationship between Edda and Kit, rather than paying strict attention to the events of canon. I've enjoyed writing female!Ned in the past and wanted to explore more of House Tully. It should span roughly the events of Robert's Rebellion and the long summer preceding the series. I have pre-written some of this and will try to update on Tuesdays and Saturdays. (I don't see this going past 12 or so chapters, so don't expect a novel, haha).

281 AC - HARRENHAL

Edda first lays eyes upon the lordling everyone calls Kit at the tourney in the year of the False Spring. She is eighteen and due to be wed to the heir of the Eyrie by the new year. But for now she is still a maiden and it is her first visit south, and although she has always been a sensible, somewhat stoic girl, she is dazzled. 

Harrenhal looms high above them, dark towers in the pale blue sky, and the grass is spring green and comfortably wet underneath her feet. She is reunited with both Brandon, a man grown now, and with Benjen, back from the Eyrie where he has spent years on the heels of Robert Baratheon and Elbert Arryn. And she and Lyanna are the best of friends, or something approaching it, because it has always been the two of them, the sisters Stark, left behind at Winterfell while their brothers raced off on new adventures. 

There are songs in the air and Lya keeps her arm linked with hers, rests her head playfully on Edda’s shoulder. Edda is a tall, somber girl with a face too long to be pretty and limbs too long to be graceful. Her hair does not curl like her sister’s, nor does it becomingly frame her face. Her one credit, as her betrothed Elbert will attest, is her striking grey eyes.

But Edda does not particularly care what Elbert may attest to. She does not dislike him as Lyanna does Robert, nor is she so open with her scorn. But she suspects their marriage will be rather tedious work for both of them; Elbert is just arrogant enough to believe he deserves better than a plain Northern girl, even if she is the blood of winter kings, and Edda is just proud enough to believe he ought to do a better job of hiding his dissatisfaction with the match. At the very least, he could spend less time making her feel like a fool whenever she speaks.

“I loved a maid as fair as summer, with sunlight in her hair,” Lyanna is singing softly under her breath, and Edda barely hides a laugh, because Ben will do her work for her-

“Are you singing?” their younger brother, all of fourteen but believing himself to be quite the man, demands incredulously, spinning around with a mocking grin. “Is sweet, demure Lyanna raising her voice in song-,”

Lyanna stops singing in order to smack him, and he yelps in alarm and scurries on ahead as she lifts her skirts to chase after him. “I’ll make _you_ sing, Benjen Stark!”

This leaves behind Edda and Brandon, and she glances up at her older brother in amusement as their younger siblings disappear into the crowds. “Not going to defend poor little Ben?”

“Ah, he thinks he’s such a man now, let him defend himself,” Brandon snorts and drapes a heavy arm over Edda’s slim shoulders. “What about you, sister? Ready to leave childhood behind?” They have a sort of shared commiseration over their weddings; Brandon is to wed Lysa Tully shortly before they all travel to the Vale to see Edda become Lady Arryn. 

“I think you know the answer to that,” Edda sighs, and pats his shoulder, although she has to rise up on her tiptoes to do so. “I’m trying not to think much on it.”

“You’ll be alright,” Brandon says gruffly, as if trying to convince the both of them. “You’ll win him over, or I’ll pay Elbert a visit to knock some sense into him.”

“Careful,” Edda hisses, through her snickers, “he could be around.” But Elbert is nowhere to be found, although she spots a familiar red-haired girl in the distance. “See, you’ve gone and jinxed yourself- there is Lady Lysa, eagerly awaiting your arrival,” she teases. 

Lyanna cannot stand Lysa, having pronounced her ‘simpering’ after a scant few minutes of conversation with the girl the night prior. Edda does not mind her so, only thinks her coddled and somewhat immature- but she is only fifteen, after all. Next year when she comes of age and she and Brandon are wed, it may be different. People change as their circumstances do.

Brandon sighs heavily. “I am beginning to think Father was a fool to turn down Ryswell’s offer.”

Edda rolls her eyes. “Don’t let Barbrey hear you say that, or you’ll find her in your bed on your wedding night, and Lysa pushed out the window.”

Her brother barks a loud laugh at that, but then Lysa has seen them and comes rushing over, flushing pink at the sight of handsome Brandon, with his long dark hair and stubbled beard. Edda takes her leave of them then and spends her time roaming the merchants who have set up shop in the castle’s shadows, and viewing the fine destriers on display in preparation for the coming tourney.

But it is that evening when the opening feast is held. That is when she sees him. Kermit Tully, known to all but his lord father as Ser Kit, sits besides his flushed, giddy sister, talking and laughing with the other lordlings around him. He sits straight and tall, and his coppery hair gleams in the torchlight. Edda is struck by his high cheekbones and the smile on his face; he appears genuinely intrigued by everything said to him. More than anything, for an instant, she wants a boy like Kit Tully to look at her like that.

“Eddara, are you listening to me?” Elbert cuts in, and Edda somewhat guiltily turns back to her betrothed, who is arching his eyebrows in disbelief that she was not riveted by his every word. Elbert is twenty one, three years her elder, and he is not cruel or stupid or lusty. He is simply… Elbert, and she will just have to learn to like him, or to at least tolerate his snobbery. 

“I’m sorry, what were you saying, my lord?” she inquires politely, sharing a look with Lyanna, who is miming retching a few seats away, much to Benjen’s amusement.

“I was saying,” Elbert continues, shaking his head a little, “that you ought to make the acquaintance of more ladies of the Vale. They will comprise your court upon our marriage, and it is imperative that-,”

Suddenly Robert Baratheon comes swaggering up to their table, and Edda could nearly kiss him for the interruption, only she wouldn’t want to give him any ideas. He is already well known for his whoring, and she feels for Lyanna in that; at the very least Elbert would never dishonor her so. Benjen says it will be different after they are wed, that Robert will change for Lyanna, but even he sounds less and less certain of it with every declaration.

“Won’t you dance with me?” he almost petulantly asks Lyanna, who looks a bit pained. Robert claps Benjen on the shoulder, making him jump slightly. “I’ve got to get your brother out there- women will line up when they see how light on his feet Stark is!”

Benjen is a fine dancer, but one would not know it from the way he chokes on his wine. Brandon is already out there, dancing with lovely Ashara Dayne. He had best ask Lysa soon, Edda thinks, or there will be tears. 

“I’m sorry,” Lyanna lies, not sounding very sorry at all, “but I gave my ankle a bit of a turn today, and I think it best that I not risk straining it anymore, my lord. You’ll have to find another partner.” Her tone verges on icy at the end there, and Robert seems momentarily taken aback. He turns to Eddara, but Elbert is already tugging her out of her seat. 

“We ought to dance a round,” he is saying, straightening the collar of his midnight blue doublet, and Edda simply inclines her head. She is not overly fond of dancing, but she much prefers it to making conversation, which never ends well with him.

As it would turn out, this dance has multiple rounds, and involves the changing of partners. Edda does not realize that until another girl is twirling into Elbert’s arms. She nearly collides with them, backtracks hastily, and then two hands settle gently on her shoulders. 

She tenses and whirls around to find herself face to face with Kit Tully, who merely smiles and removes his hands. He has long fingers and freckles on the back of his palms. His eyes look very blue. Elbert has blue eyes as well, but Kit Tully has eyes blue as the freshest river. Girls could drown in them, or dive into their depths.

“My apologies,” Edda begins hastily, for she very much doubts he wants to dance with her- he is unbetrothed and thus on the minds of every young maid in attendance, for many would like to be Lady Tully someday. 

“Shall we?” Kit says, linking his fingers with her own and waiting for her approval, and Edda stares at him, feels her cheeks catch fire, and gives a jerky nod.

Dancing with him is not the chore it has always been with others. He leads her quickly but carefully around the room, and is not so much taller than her that he towers over her. It allows for easy conversation, and after some initial hesitance, Edda finds that words bubble out of her like a spring. “I am eager to see Riverrun,” she tells him, and she is not even lying to stroke his ego, “they say there is no castle quite like it- it can be completely surrounded by water, can it not?”

“If my father wills it so,” Kit says, smiling, and his eyes never leave her own. “I confess that I have never traveled far enough to see how unique my home truly is. You see I was fostered here at Harrenhal; my lady mother was a Whent.” He does not immediately say more, and Edda struggles to find more coherent words.

“Then we are to be like brother and sister, after Brandon weds Lysa,” she finally settles on. “I know she is so excited, my lord.”

“Surely you don’t need another brother,” Kit Tully laughs, but there is something else in his eyes, and then he almost hesitates, before continuing, “And you are promised to Ser Elbert, my lady?”

“I- yes,” Edda wonders why she sounds almost guilty about it. “The match was arranged when I was thirteen and he sixteen. My father did not wish to see me wed before my brother, his heir, however.”

“And I am glad of it,” says Kit, and for a moment the music seems to fade away and it could be just the two of them, dancing in an empty hall long after the hearths have died out, “for then I might not have gotten the chance to dance with you tonight, my lady.”

He is flirting with her, she realizes in shock, and so gapes at him dumbly until he looks almost concerned. He flushes then, and it makes him look charmingly boyish; he is so fair-skinned that it is truly blatant- “My apologies if I… overstepped my bounds, Lady Eddara. I did not intend- that is, I am well aware that you are-,”

“You may call me Edda, if you like,” Eddara says foolishly, because she ought not to be encouraging this sort of rapport- he is not her kin, and she is promised to another. It is improper. But she cannot help herself. Suddenly she sees why girls fling themselves at Robert Baratheon or at Brandon. Is this what they feel? This sort of heady recklessness, this invulnerability? She feels as though she could do anything, say anything, so long as he keeps looking at her like that.

“Edda,” Kit says, as if considering the name, “I will remember that.”

Then Elbert is at her elbow, and Eddara freezes in shame, taking an automatic step back from Kit, who does not retreat, but has the good sense to let go of her hands. He is taller than Elbert, she notes with some silly satisfaction. This is absurd. She has never been the sort to pit two men against one another, and she should not start now. What would Father say?

“Come along, my lady,” Elbert tells her almost boredly, oblivious to anything that may have passed between them. And why should he be suspicious? Edda has never been the girl that men fight over. And she has certainly never before been so amiable with a man she barely knows. “I am sure Lord Kermit has others he must greet. This is his kin’s home, after all.”

As he pulls her away, she mouths ‘Ser Kit’ in correction and smiles softly to herself like the fool that she is. She is truly fortunate that no one notices her somewhat dazed countenance for the rest of night. But Brandon and Benjen are too busy teasing Lya over her sudden sobriety, ostensibly from Prince Rhaegar’s sad songs. Edda barely hears any of the words, still swimming in Kit Tully’s blue eyes.


	2. Kermit I

282 AC - HARRENTOWN

Kit reins in his chestnut courser when Edmure spots the horse by the stream. A solitary black stallion, saddle loose and bent over to drink. As he slows Oz to a trot, the his little brother scrambles down from his pony and wades in up to his waist. “Watch your step,” Kit says sharply; the stream is not moving so fast as to knock him off balance, but were he to slip and fall he could easily be swept downstream and dashed on the rocks. 

Edmure reaches the opposite bank breathless and red-faced with excitement; he is a child of nine and this is all a grand game to him, hunting for a missing lady, as if they are playing hide and seek and at any moment Lyanna Stark will clamber down from a tree, jubilant at having eluded them. The stallion takes heed of Edmure at last and draws back, neighing in warning.

“Let it be,” Kit calls out, concerned his brother may spook it. He dismounts himself, nodding to Jason Mallister and Tytos Blackwood, who do similarly. 

“The horse doesn’t seem injured,” says Jason, frowning. “Could it have thrown her?”

“Not into the water, I hope,” Tytos comments darkly. “That would have broken her neck.”

“I’ve seen the lady ride,” Kit shakes his head. “She’s a fine horsewoman.” All the Starks are good riders, and all of them, even the women, ride astride. He confesses he is not as put off as it as he should be. He watched Eddara Stark ride up to Riverrun with her father and sister not three days past, and as they drew close she and her sister broke ahead of the grim northern ranks and made a race towards the castle; Lyanna pulled ahead at the last moment, grinning triumphantly, but from his vantage point Kit could see that her sister had let her win.

“I found tracks!” Edmure shouts excitedly from further down the banks, and as they forge ahead to join him there is a distant cry. Kit turns quickly to see a familiar grey palfrey galloping towards them, although its rider eases into a canter as she approaches. 

“That cannot be-,” Jason begins in surprise.

“My lady,” Kit utters, for want of what else to say, as Eddara Stark, face a mask of cold severity and hair damp from the morning mist, rides up to them, mud splattered over her cloak and gown. He moves forward to help her down from her horse, but she dismounts swiftly, like a man, in one fluid motion. 

“You found my sister’s horse,” she states, staring across the stream. “His name is Artos.” She gives a low, almost mournful whistle, and the horse picks up and then comes down the length of the stream towards her. Edda clicks her tongue and he wades across at a shallow, narrow point. His size is immense up close; Kit can scarcely believe a girl of fifteen had such command over him. This is a warhorse built for speed in battle, not a lady’s docile mount.

“He is not fond of men,” Edda warns before any of them can step forward, and it see who approaches, checking the saddlebags and the horse’s mane and flank. She shakes her head.

There is the sound of splashing and Edmure comes running back to them, before skidding to a halt in the mud at the sight of Eddara. “My lady,” he says, with a neat little bow, before he wheels on Kit, eyes wide with the expectation of praise. “There’s lots of hoofprints and boot marks.”

“Bandits?” Tytos offers in a low tone, glancing at Kit. “They could have thought to get a ransom from her, forced her off the horse at swordpoint…”

“The only way she would have come down from Artos is if she dismounted herself,” Edda contends. “But if she was attacked she would have fought back- screamed, shouted for help. Where is the nearest holdfast? They would have heard something, surely.”

“Surely you should return to Riverrun, my lady,” Jason Mallister begins gallantly. “This is- well, this is no place for a woman. If it was bandits they could still be about.”

The look in Eddara Stark’s icy grey eyes makes Kit very glad Jason took this fall before he did. “I will not return anywhere until we know what happened to my sister,” she says, and although she does not raise her voice it still cracks like a whip. “And as for bandits-,” she adjusts her cloak, revealing the hunting dagger at her side.

Tytos make a noise that is half scoff of disbelief, half impressed whistle. She ignores him, ignores all of them, and forges ahead. Kit is familiar with the area, having spent much of his childhood in these misty hills, and locates the closest farm with little trouble. The farmer is planting in his fields, but his son does not take much questioning to admit that he did see men ride past, avoiding the road as much as they could, perhaps five hours past. 

“Noble or common?” Kit asks as calmly as he is able, mind racing.

The boy swallows hard. “They were noble for sure, milord. Common folk don’t have fine horses like that, and their armor- white as snow, I swear it.” He grows slightly eager in spite of his apprehension. “Could it have been Kingsguard, milord? They say-,”

“Was there a woman with them?” Edda presses, mouth a thin, hard line.

The boy hesitates. “I- maybe, in front of the one in black, milady, but- they were at a gallop, it was hard to tell-,”

She is already turning away, and Kit has to walk faster than he would like to catch up to her as she stalks a distance away, wrapping her arms around herself. He knows they are both thinking the same thing. 

“Rhaegar,” she says. “It was Rhaegar and his men.”

Kit is cautious still, although he would be hard-pressed to argue otherwise. “We have no firm proof of it.”

“Have your men ask around a little while more, and we surely will,” Eddara’s tone is not that of a woman on the verge of tears or even outrage, but a hard, flat declaration. Knowing, and not liking the knowledge. “They cannot be inconspicuous. You heard the boy. They were not in disguise. Even if they are riding hard, not stopping- people will glimpse them. Arthur Dayne, Oswell Whent- men like that could no more go unnoticed than a red moon.” 

“He- this is bold, even for a Targaryen,” Kit says. “My lady, I assure you, this will not go uncontested. If your sister was taken by them, many will rise in your family’s defense. It is dishonorable.” He is so sure of his gallantry that he is almost furious himself. He had not taken the prince for the sort, but if he is so shameless as to take a woman against her will like a common brigand, who could excuse it? They have had foul kings and princes before, but never a kidnapping of a noblewoman, not since the time of Maegor the Cruel. 

Eddara looks at him and he almost recoils, for he would never wish to see such an expression directed at him; it is nearly scornful, although not quite. The look in her eyes makes her momentarily seem much older. “Yes,” she says. “Dishonorable. A great shame for my family. My lord father will be outraged. Brandon will be baying for Rhaegar’s blood. And my sister will be a ruined woman from this moment forward.”

Then he sees it. For Edda it is not a question of honor and shame and a smear upon the family name. It is her sister, her own blood, the girl she was raised with. Lyanna is not just a faceless victim of some errant noble’s lust, she is flesh and bone, a laughing girl who loves horses and dancing. He imagines if it were Lysa missing, and the thought nearly makes him shudder. His sister, snatched away. He would do anything to get her back, kill any man, scale any castle wall. He would march a thousand men to their deaths for the chance of her safe return.

But even if Lyanna is returned, even if Rhaegar pays a dowry or begs forgiveness, appeals to pragmatism and sends the girl back to Winterfell when he tires of her, what will she be? She was taken by another man before her wedding. She will be known as either a whore or a broken bird. Something to be derided or pitied. He knows enough of the girl to know either would slowly destroy her. Lyanna Stark is not one to tolerate derision or pity, however well-intended. 

As if she could hear his thoughts, Eddara gives a shaky exhale. “Mayhaps he intends to make her his mistress. I will tell you now as I stand before you, my lord, and you may repeat this to all who would question my sister. She would rather die than be any man’s plaything. That is not Lyanna. She is not some Barba Bracken or Melissa Blackwood. She detests court. She abhors wenching. She would not lie with any man who was not her wedded husband in the eyes of the gods. Whatever they will say of her, it is wrong. I know Lya.”

Kit can only nod, but he wonders whether she is trying to convince herself as well as him. Then he chides himself for the passing thought. His duty is to report back to Riverrun. Not to speculate on whether or not Lyanna Stark was charmed by the prince after he courted her favor at a tourney a year ago. 

And Eddara is right. There are fleeting reports of the Kingsguard and the prince being spotted throughout the Riverlands in the week that follows. More letters are sent from Riverrun in the span of several days than in entire months past. Brandon Stark has received word of it and intends to make for King’s Landing. Rickard Stark, dangerously silent in his fury, means to attempt to head him off, but it is a lost cause, that much is clear. Lysa cries and cries as she has not in years. Kit does not know what to say to her, and eventually leaves it to Edmure and Petyr to try to bring her out of her dark moods. He feels for his sister, but he has other concerns. 

He finds Edda in the godswood, praying. Kit has been in the godswood many times, but as he and his siblings have always worshipped the seven, it was really more of a place to play than anything else. He feels odd now, watching her kneel in front of the petite weirwood. Her hair is bound in a long plait down her narrow back, and her pale grey-blue skirt is spread out across the mossy ground, still damp from spring rains.

He almost turns on his heel to go, but she seems to realize she is not alone and slowly rises, smoothing her skirts before she turns to face him. They stare at each other, before she lowers her gaze, brow furrowing, and he takes a few tentative steps forward. “We all are praying for your sister’s safety, my lady,” is all Kit can think to say, although he knows it must mean little to her. Prayers and incense will not return Lyanna to her. 

“You are very kind, my lord,” she says. The worry and pain is writ all over her long face, from the creases on her forehead to the set of her mouth. Her sister, her brother, her betrothed- he does not know how she can stand so much uncertainty. He cannot. He was always a hopelessly curious child, with a thousand and one questions for his father and uncle. He never liked not knowing. But now the future suddenly seems uncertain, as if the side of a formerly solid hill had suddenly given way, sending all atop it in different directions.

“My father means to send me back to Winterfell,” Eddara glances at him. “You have been a generous and welcoming host, despite the circumstances, Ser Kit. I thank you for it.”

“You will be alone?” He frowns, trying to imagine Winterfell, which he has never seen, in his mind, a massive castle covered in snow, and her alone, roaming its corridors.

“I will have my people,” she says as firmly as she can. He can tell she is trying to be brave from the set of her shoulders. He can tell she is frightened from the look in her eyes. He likes her all the more for it. For her steadfast nature in the face of fear, for her refusal to go to pieces in front of him or anyone else. 

“You will lead them well while Lord Rickard and Lord Brandon are gone,” Kit tells her, honestly, and she looks at him in surprise for referencing her leadership, he assumes, and not her sitting by the fire and weeping like a maiden in a story. 

In the stories that seems to be all the maidens ever do, besides being rescued from evil men or fearsome beasts. He thinks an evil man would cringe from Eddara Stark’s harsh gaze and that she’d hunt and skin any fearsome beast that bared its teeth at her. He thinks her more Florian than Jonquil and wonder what that makes him. 

“I have no other choice.” She curtsies to him and sweeps past, skirts rustling in the wet grass, and he looks after her and tries not to long for something that is even more impossible in the midst of all this uncertainty.


	3. Eddara II

283 AC - RIVERRUN

Edda rides south again not with a bridal procession but a war party. She is nearly twenty and if she was a stoic girl before, then a year of war has made her a severe woman indeed. When they leave the North behind at the Neck she bids it a silent farewell in her mind. She tries to memorize the layout of Winterfell’s walls, remember the smells of the kitchens and the feasting hall and the glass gardens, of the hot springs and the godswood. Every night when she fitfully tries to sleep she closes her eyes and pretends she is in the wolfswood in the flush of spring.

When her dreams are happy she is a girl of ten, walking hand in hand with Lyanna through the forest. Brandon runs ahead, whacking at bushes with a wooden sword, looking for sweet berries to eat. Benjen climbs a tree, scrambling up into the lower branches of a whispering pine, laughing. Edda sits down by a burbling stream and knots wildflowers into a crown while Lya wades into the water, hitching up her mud-stained skirt.

When her dreams are not happy she is still a girl of ten, but it is not a pleasant summer afternoon but a fiercely cold winter’s night. The wind tears at her face and hair and stings her eyes. Her siblings are nowhere to be seen, although she can distantly hear them shouting for her, drowned out by the howling wind. Snow piles up around her as she trudges on, calling out them, squinting through the long shadows. 

She finds Brandon, wooden sword in hand, mouth stained red with blood, not berries. He lies bloody and broken on the ground, sightless grey eyes gazing up at her as the thorny brambles choke around his neck and limbs. Ben dangles from the same pine he had climbed, face gone blueish grey, eyes swollen shut. And Lya… Edda always finds her at the stream, but her sister is not splashing happily but instead floating in a river of frothy blood, face down, her hair fanned out around her.

Edda always tries to drag her from the water, to save her, but Lyanna is too cold and slippery to hold onto, and she always wakes up before she can turn her around. 

Perhaps if she had any sense she would dream of her own death. But Edda doesn’t fear dying. Some babes die in the cradle, some children are snatched away by illness. She should be grateful that the gods have given her two decades of life. No, what Edda fears is loss. She has already lost Lyanna and Father and Brandon and even Elbert. She cannot lose anymore. She cannot lose Ben. She cannot be the only one left. 

It is a grim, cold procession south, despite it being the second year of spring. Sleeting rains and wind race across the hills and the horses are constantly slipping in the mud. The men who guard her are little more than boys or old, battered warriors, too long in the tooth to go charging into battle. She is accompanied by no train of ladies save Maege Mormont and her two eldest daughters.

Lady Maege intends to join the Northern forces at the Trident, where it is widely speculated that Rhaegar will try to cross the Ruby Ford with forty thousand men at his back. If he succeeds, even if Ben and Robert were to survive the defeat, the only option would be to flee back to the North; holing up in Riverrun would only prolong the inevitable. And then Rhaegar will take his loyalist army and sweep through Edda’s ancestral lands, leaving a trail of devastation in his wake.

So they cannot lose. Were Edda a man she would go into battle herself. Even had she been trained from childhood like the Mormont women to fight and defend herself, she would still try to do so. But she has a different path. She is going to Riverrun to marry Kit Tully, and Dacey Mormont, a tall, lanky girl of seventeen who is deadly with a mace, will marry Benjen so that House Stark might have an heir should he perish. And Kit’s sister Lysa will marry Jon Arryn, for after the deaths of Elbert and his cousin Denys, the Vale’s line of succession has been cut short.

Edda did not anticipate this. Months ago when the plan was made she had been expecting to be betrothed to some northern lord. A Karstark or an Umber, perhaps, even a Cerwyn. She had assumed that after Brandon’s death Ben would take his place and marry Lady Lysa in his stead. But something else must have occurred, for now they say Lysa will marry Lord Jon, and Edda will marry Kit, and Ben will take a proper Northern bride. She tries not to think on it. If she thinks about it too much she will go to pieces. 

Fortunately, the Mormont women are not inclined to brood or despair, so Edda can not spend as much time ruminating as she would have otherwise. Lady Maege insists on testing her archery skills on the long journey south, making her catch hares for dinner, and on putting her up against Dacey and Alysane so she can learn to defend herself with a dagger. Edda generally loses, badly; Dacey towers over her, despite her own willowy frame, and is much quicker as well. It has been years since Edda clashed wooden practice swords with Lya in the godswood, playing at knights.

“It doesn’t bother you, that you won’t be able to fight?” she asks Dacey one evening when they are only a two week’s ride away from Riverrun. She and Dacey get along well, when Maege is not making them spar. Dacey is but seventeen, three years younger than Edda, but comes across as older in her bearing; she is calm and watchful, although she can rouse in passion when pushed. Her younger sister Alysane, in contrast, is much more temperamental; a stocky girl of ten who wears her dark brown hair cut short and choppy, not in a long braid like her older sister.

Dacey gives a small shrug, resting her callused hands on her crossed legs as she sits by the fire. She has not worn a skirt or gown once during their travel, but Edda has seen her wedding gown tucked away in a trunk; a plain woolen dress trimmed with ermine fur around the collar and sleeves. Edda helped her sew her maiden cloak, as Dacey and Alysane helped with hers. 

“I won’t lie- I’d much rather be out on the field, but I’m not opposed to this,” Dacey says. “Your brother’s a good man, and I doubt he’s any more eager to be wed than I am. But the Starks have always been good to us, and it seems a small price to pay, all things considered.”

“I’ll never marry,” young Alysane wrinkles her snub nose. “I’m going to find a bear when I want children, just like Mother.”

Edda raised an eyebrow in amusement at that, as Dacey snickered. “I’m sure you will in good time, Aly. A shame there’s not many bears around these parts, just Freys.”

The mood at Riverrun is far less festive than the last time Edda visited. The castle is muted, almost unnaturally quiet given the amount of people passing through each day and the men camped outside. She tries to look at it with different eyes than she has before; she is to be lady of the place now, after all. This will be her home. It is much smaller than Winterfell, but there is a godswood and warm sandstone reddish pink walls. There is a great waterwheel and three towers covered in ivy. There are gardens that were greatly expanded by the late Lady Minisa.

Hoster Tully is still recovering from a wound he took in the last battle, Lady Lysa is barely seen at all, and Ser Kit is not the charming boy she remembered. That is not to say that he is unrecognizable, but when she knew him before he was freshly knighted and aside from a few skirmishes had never seen battle or gone to war. Now his hair is cropped short around his temple and there is more stubble on his freckled face. He fought at the Battle of the Bells with his father and the rebel forces, and he wears armor now, not fine doublets and cloaks. 

But in truth she barely sees him at all, because all of her attention is taken when Benjen and Robert arrive. Her brother has barely dismounted before she is embracing him, and while Edda was never the most affectionate of her siblings before; that was Lyanna, with her crushing hugs and playful prods and pinches, now she doesn’t care much for decorum or propriety. Even if her sixteen year old brother is now the Warden of the North and her ruling lord. 

She has not seen Benjen since he came North to call their banners; he has shot up in height, if not in brawn. He is still thin and lanky, her light-footed little brother, who was never a match for Brandon with a sword, favoring a longbow and a dagger instead. At the very least war has not taken away his broad smile, even if it has given him the beginnings of a beard. “Ben,” she almost sobs into his shoulder, so glad just to hold someone, anyone who shares her blood.

Then she composes herself enough to step back and face Robert, who looks slightly abashed by this display. He is not the cocky boy-man she remembers either. War has sobered him, even as it has broadened his shoulders and added more weight to his armor. “Thank you for keeping my brother alive, Lord Baratheon,” she tells him, and Robert just snorts and says, “Thank your brother for keeping Connington off my back at Stoney Sept. Nearly put an arrow through his skull.”

“I missed,” says Benjen ruefully. 

Robert slings an arm around his shoulders. “Ah, but you hit the sorry bastard behind him, didn’t you?” 

They have barely a day before three weddings are to be held. Edda knows it is rude of her to not spend her time with the Tullys, but she will lose Ben again after this. She cannot give her brother up so easily. They take refuge in the godswood, and Edda can almost pretend they are in Winterfell, although is it far too quiet without Brandon and Lyanna’s incessant bickering. She sits beside her brother under the same weirwood she prayed at the last time she was here.

“I know nothing of women,” Benjen admits sheepishly after a few minutes. “Dacey will find me lacking, I think.” One of her brother’s chief virtues is his humility; Brandon was always so proud, so angry whenever he felt disrespected in the slightest. Ben is a second son, was not the prized heir their brother was. He did not have the weight of Father’s expectations and honor upon him, and so he was always somewhat free in that regard. 

“You know nothing of women,” Edda rolls her eyes, stares him down almost fondly, for he will ever be her baby brother, lord or not. “You spent days hiding in a brothel with Robert, and you know nothing of women?”

“I know something of whores,” he admits. “Although I am not nearly as educated on them as Robert.” He gives a sly little smile, and Edda gives him a gentle push in response.

“I will be a wedded woman tomorrow, and you would speak to me of whores. Have some respect.”

“Truthfully, sister, we did very little speaking-,”

“Ben!” she laughs in outrage. “Alright, then you do know a little of women. Whores are not a separate species. They have children, sometimes they even wed, do they not?”

“Yes, the less hardworking ones.” He snickers at that, and she reminds herself that he is still only sixteen. A battle-tested man, come of age and free to do as he pleases, but still a boy in many ways. “Alright, I am sorry for my japes. But you know what I mean, Edda. Lying with a woman is one thing. Being married to her is another.”

They both go silent, reflecting that he and Dacey may not be married long, nor will her and Kit, if things at the Trident go poorly. 

“Women are more like men than men are willing to admit,” Edda finally says, “and you were fortunate enough to grow up with two of them. Lya and I taught you well enough how to treat a girl, I think. Dacey is not some delicate flower. She can take care of herself. The worst thing you could to her would be to condescend to her. She does not need you to be some hero out of a story. She needs you to respect her as your wife, and to listen to her. Her mother will be fighting at your side in the coming battle. Don’t brush her off. The Mormonts know more of war than most.”

He seems to reflect on that for a few moments, to her relief, before he gives a slow nod. “I know she is like not to be a maid.” It is not an insult, she thinks- it is well known that Maege Mormont never officially married, and for all the talk of bears, it is true that any other noble house would consider Dacey and her sisters bastards. But they are Mormonts because Maege says so, and because it has been done that way on Bear Island for hundreds of years. Men and women treat one another differently. Perhaps it is not such a bad thing.

Edda regards him carefully. “Will it bother you?”

Benjen exhales, and then shakes his head. “I don’t think so. I’m no maid- why should she be? What difference does it make, truly? Neither of us have children. What will we have, one night together? Then if I die… I die.”

Edda squeezes his shoulder hard enough that he winces. “You’ll live.” She speaks it aloud like a prayer, if any of their gods can hear them this far south. “You’ll live and you’ll come back to her to have plenty of babes to run around Winterfell.”

Benjen smiles wanly, and then looks directly into her eyes. “I’m sorry it had to be like this, Edda. I’m sorry you couldn’t marry Elbert after all.” His smile fades. “Brandon was a fool to ride into the Red Keep with him.” 

Edda’s stomach twists unpleasantly. “Brandon did what he thought was best.” Had Rhaegar not run like a coward, perhaps he could have ended it all there. 

“He did,” Ben sighs. “But- I know this is not what you had expected.”

“It’s what must be done,” Edda insists, then pauses. “But you have spent more time by now around Ser Kit than I have. What do you think of him?” She knows that if he had not thought him worthy of her nothing could have compelled Benjen to agree to the match, regardless of politics, regardless of war. Her brother is still too kind. He may not be so kind by the end of all this, but neither may she. 

“I think he is clever, far more clever than he lets on,” Benjen says thoughtfully. “He is a good strategist. His men respect him- and they like him. He isn’t reckless. He cares more about winning in the long run than any personal glory. I trust him at my back in battle.” He hesitates. “I think he will treat you as you deserve. And I think you could come to… more of an understanding with him than you ever could with Elbert.”

“Oh,” says Edda in a smaller voice, and she and Benjen look at each other steadily before they embrace once more. “Thank you,” she says, as the breeze ruffles both their hair. “For wanting me to be happy, Ben.”

“You are all I have left,” he murmurs. “How could I not, Edda?”


	4. Kermit II

283 AC - RIVERRUN

Kit wakes on the morn of his wedding feeling the same way he did the morn before the Battle of the Bells. His stomach is jolting with nerves even before he recalls what worries him. On that grey morning two months ago he slept on the outskirts of Stoney Sept and prayed as he had never prayed before. He thinks himself reasonably devout for a man of eighteen, although he is not without his sins. And his father has always said that every man is faithful on the eve of a battle. 

Fully dressed, he sits on the edge of his bed, which suddenly seems rather small and boyish. He will move into different rooms when he returns to Riverrun, for he will be a married man then. Should he return to Riverrun. He can’t think too much on it. Gods willing, the rebels will succeed, and things will be as they once were. Kit does not care so much who sits the throne so long as there is peace for his family, although he knows that is foolish of him.

He will settle for seeing Aerys dead. Kit has always had an idealistic slant, but even pragmatically speaking the Mad King must die. A weak or corrupt king can be controlled by his council and by his vices. A madman is intolerable for everyone, past a certain point. When Aerys was simply paranoid and impulsive in his rulings, it was a fine day for Tywin Lannister, was it not? Now they say he has men burned every night, that he has exiled Connington and named yet another Hand. 

Had Rhaegar not proved himself a monster, Kit thinks the realm would have breathed a collective sigh of relief upon his eventual coronation. Excepting perhaps the Lannisters, who would have lost their death-grip on the position of Hand. He is thankful enough that Lord Tywin has not yet openly declared for Aerys. The last thing the Riverlands needs to worry about is soldiers pouring in from the west to surround them on all sides except north. 

He runs through battle plans in his head while he washes his face. It is is certainly less unnerving than the prospect of a woman at the altar. He should be eager. He is attracted to Eddara Stark, even fond of her from the little he knows. Did he not want her, not think about her those nights at Harrenhal, alone in his bedchamber? Not lust after another man’s future wife? Few men are innocent of that particular sin, but few men must contend with actually marrying the woman they envied another man for. Particularly when that man is now dead.

He cannot imagine how she must feel. Her father and brother are dead. The man she had thought to marry for years is dead. Her sister is still missing. Her only remaining sibling is about to march off to war once more. She has very little left to her. And now she will be saddled with him as well. He could not blame her if she came to despise him for all that he represents, so many crushed hopes and dreams. He doubts she was ever in love with Elbert Arryn, but love is only a small part of a marriage. She was to be lady of the Eyrie, wife to the future Warden of the East.

Now that title will go to his sister instead. He and Lysa have not been on good terms for some time now, and while he tried to speak with her, to comfort her, before their guests arrived, it was… Well, for once he did not know what to say, and she was in no mood to listen. He doesn’t necessarily blame her for her anger and her resentment, but he cannot help his own frustration, with both her and Father. This all could have been avoided.

But there is no changing the past now.

It feels odd to be wearing such formal clothes after what seems like weeks of sleeping in armor, sword within reach. Now he wears the Tully colors, a dark blue doublet trimmed with deep red, his hair combed and his face clean shaven. He doesn’t mind it, doesn’t chafe at the velvet and lace the way Robert would, but he does feel a bit like a child playing dress up. He had never thought to see war in his lifetime, and certainly not on this scale. Conflicts between river houses would be one thing. War against the Iron Throne itself is another. 

If he dies in the coming battle, but the rebels still triumph, he thinks he could accept it. He does not want to die so young, without any family or legacy of his own to leave behind, but the same is true for any man, be he a prince or a peasant. If he dies and they lose, or if he lives to see Rhaegar triumph… He will be beheaded, burned, or hanged as a traitor. There is no question of that. And his entire family with him. Father, Uncle Brynden, Lysa, Edmure… He thinks he’d rather die on the field. 

Yet right now the one battlefield before him is the sept. He enters with Edmure and a few other lords, ahead of the rest. Father will be escorting Lysa down the aisle to Lord Arryn, just as Benjen Stark will be delivering his sister to Kit. Directly after this they will all proceed to the godswood, where Benjen will wed Lady Dacey. The Northerners promise a quick ceremony, and then the feasting can begin. Kit has never been less hungry in his life.

“Good luck,” says Edmure, merrily enough, although he is still pouting over Kit’s refusal to take him on as a page. He is ten and not quite old enough to grasp that if his elder brother dies, he will be Father’s heir. Nor is he old enough to grasp that the Trident will run red with blood by the end of it all, and that Kit would do anything to keep his blood from mixing with the rest. Little boys think of war as a splendid game, and Ed is no different. Kit wants him to stay that way for as long as possible.

He ruffles his brother’s hair quickly in response, and then straightens, standing tall and composed, the picture of the regal lord, as the harpist begins to play. There are only a few musicians, and the decorations are scant. This is hardly a true display of House Tully’s prosperity or pedigree. But in a time like this they are lucky to be wed in a proper sept at all.

Lysa looks beautiful, her auburn curls teased out around her round face, sapphires gleaming at her white throat, but her eyes are full of unshed tears, and she clutches at Father’s stiffly proffered arm like a drowning man. Kit has to look away from her stricken expression, guilt clawing at his insides. 

In sharp contrast, Eddara Stark is not so much led by her brother as leading him. Benjen looks the more uncertain of the two, gaze darting around warily to the high vaulted ceiling of the unfamiliar sept, while Edda stares straight ahead, her grey gaze never leaving Kit’s. To his alarm, he reddens likes a child. Robert catches his eye and grins in amusement. 

The septon does not linger over his words, and the vows come easily to Kit, who cannot stop staring at Edda. He has always been struck by her intelligence and her force of will, not her looks, but he cannot think her anything but striking now. She has lilies in her long hair and her gown, although simple in cut and material, gleams with silver stitching along the sleeves and bodice. Her brother slowly removes her maiden’s cloak, Kit drapes her in his, and says, only somewhat aware his lips are forming the words, “With this kiss I pledge my love, and take you for my lady and wife.” 

“With this kiss I pledge my love, and take you for my lord and husband,” Edda replies, and leans up to kiss him before he can bend his head down to kiss her. Their lips barely brush against one another’s before she pulls back, and the septon declares them man and wife, one flesh, one heart, one soul. Kit wonders distractedly how much of this she even believes. They are being married in the tradition of his religion, not hers. Will she balk at the idea of their children praying in a sept?

But he does not have much time to dwell on it, for after that there is scattered applause and they are being ushered out of the sept, Eddara holding the bouquet of flowers Edmure gives her as if she is not quite sure what they expect her to do with it. The ceremony in the godswood is very short, but his wife- he still wonders at that- seems to brighten upon seeing her brother kneel before the heart tree with Dacey Mormont. Their kiss is decidedly more passionate than the ones in the sept. Kit attributes it to youthful vigor.

Then comes the long-awaited feast. The common soldiers have their own celebration outside the castle’s walls, but every noble in attendance is crammed into the Great Hall, spilling out into the gardens. There are far more men, many of whom have not been around any women but whores and barmaids in months, present than women, and Kit keeps a watchful gaze on his new wife and his sister, respectively. 

But he does not try to cajole Edda into conversation; she is clearly close with her brother, and he would not come between them at a time like this. He has been her husband of all but a few hours. Benjen has been her brother since birth. Lysa picks at her food while her husband discusses troop movements with Robert, and Kit dances with Maege Mormont, which he can honestly say is not something he had ever foreseen occuring. Grizzled as the woman may be, she can certainly keep rhythm. He does dance one round with Edda, but he can tell she is distracted from the way she occasionally struggles to keep up with him. It is not how it was at Harrenhal. Neither of them realized how free and unburdened they were then, with no one’s eyes upon them. Now everyone seems to be watching them.

“My lady,” he says as the dance ends and the musicians switch to a bawdier tune. “The bedding is like to be rowdy.”

“With Umbers in attendance, that is a certainty,” she says dryly, although color does rise in her cheeks. He feels vaguely satisfied at that, as if it is proof that she is not as aloof and stoic as she sometimes seems. 

“I would not see you humiliated,” he continues. “If you wish, I will refuse it, and we may leave beforehand.” He hopes she does not think he is merely eager to get her in bed with him, although he would be lying if he said some small, boyish part of him was not looking forward to it. He hasn’t had a woman in months, and with her- there is still some naive hope of romance, as much as he may try to stifle it.

“No,” she says after a long moment. “You must stay to look out for Lady Lysa. She will need your support if she is to get through it without tears.” This is said frankly, without reproach or disdain, and he could kiss her for that kindness. She owes his sister nothing, but she still puts others before herself.

Eddara proves correct. When the first calls for the bedding go up, Kit springs up and immediately reaches Lysa’s side, scooping his sister up in his arms before any other man can lay hands on her. She buries her face in his shoulder, scarlet with mortification as they are surrounded by a ribald crowd, laughing and jeering, yanking off her shoes and the ribbons and flowers from her hair. 

He does not have time to look for Eddara, although he assumes her brother is doing similarly. When he sets Lysa down in the room she looks at him with panicked, naked fear, and Kit wants nothing more than to take her away. But he cannot, and this is simply how it must be. 

“Be brave,” he tells her swiftly, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “I know you can be brave, Lysa. Lord Jon will not hurt you.” She nods anxiously and squeezes his hand before he goes, fighting through the crowd of drunken men and a few giggling ladies to his own quarters, where his own bride is waiting. 

Edda sits on the bed, hands clasped in her lap. Her hair is mussed and her cloak is missing. He can see the back of her dress is undone, revealing a brief glimpse of flesh. But she does not seem upset, only a bit awkward, shifting in place when he closes the door behind him. He is not in much better shape himself, his doublet yanked off him and his trousers unlaced. He looks as though he were attacked by a mob, he thinks ruefully, which is not that far from the truth. They exchange quick, furtive glances as he sits down on the bed beside her, taking off his boots. When he is done he notices how tense she is; she is not recoiling from him, but she is on edge, like she might have to dart away at any moment.

Kit thinks about it, weighing his options, and then says, despite the voice in his head screaming not to, “I have a brother. Should I die Riverrun will fall to his rule after my father. I am not like Benjen, with no one to succeed him. If… if it would…,” he sighs, and decides to put it plainly. “I don’t wish to force you into something you do not want. Not after all you have been through, my lady.” Not after what has happened to her sister.

“You are my husband,” she says, tone carefully neutral.

“Aye,” Kit says, swallowing. “I am. And I pledged to protect you. That includes from myself. I would not have you remember me as someone who hurt you.”

“You will not hurt me,” Edda glances up at him, instead of at the floor, and he believes her. “I do not think you would ever do such a thing. You are an honorable man.”

“Yes,” he says, “but-,”

“I am twenty years of age,” she interrupts him forcefully. “Two years older than you, my lord. I have been flowered for many years now. I am not a timid little girl who still dreads the marriage bed. I know what is expected of both of us.” Then her face softens slightly, or perhaps it is just the torchlight. “You are my husband. I am your wife. And-,” here she does blush, crimson, “I am not made of stone, no matter what they say. I know I am not what you-,”

“No,” it is his turn to interrupt, “no, you are.” And he does not say what she is, because he is too busy kissing her, his fingers tangling up to his knuckles in her hair, and in a welcome surprise she does not stiffen or cringe away but after a moment seems to surge against him, leaning into him instead of away, gripping onto his shoulders.

And although he is not under the delusion that this is love, not all duties are unpleasant. Certainly not this one. That is not to say it is not uncomfortable and clumsy at times, but when they are done she sleeps peacefully beside him, with her hair draped over his shoulder, and he stares at the ceiling and when he can think again, thinks about how fate works in strange ways, and how she may not think him half so honorable when she hears of the bastard in the nursery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? A mysterious illegitimate child causing potential marital drama? In an ASOIAF fic?


	5. Eddara III

283 AC - RIVERRUN

Edda’s first thought is that Riverrun, while far smaller than Winterfell, has a lovely nursery. The room is perfectly circular, with a stained glass window overlooking the river; a blue fish leaps in the middle of it, glowing in the morning sunlight. One of the walls is coated with freshwater shells, and there is a lavish patterned rug across the stone floor. It is the sort of room anyone would envy for their child.

And the child in question is staring right at her; a babe of perhaps a year or less, old enough to sit up in the cradle and regard them with open curiosity. The babe has a head of light brown curls, but there is no mistaking the eyes, Edda thinks with a sinking feeling, as if she is up to her waist in thick mud. Those eyes are Tully blue without question, blue as the sky on a fine summer day. The child has a sharp nose and long, delicate lashes. Edda thinks she sees something of her husband in the chin and ears, and not just the eyes.

“This is Alayne,” says Kit, voice steady but slightly pained, as if he were watching his wife break down and cry. Edda is not crying; she is in fact proud of her composure. It is one thing to put on a mask of neutrality on a day to day basis, and another when faced with her husband’s natural child, whose very existence was hidden from her. When she woke up to see Kit looking at her this morning, she was almost pleased he had stayed. He will be gone by sundown, after all. But then he said he had something to show her.

Someone, to be more precise.

“Alayne Rivers,” Edda says, taking a step closer to the cradle. It is only a babe, she scolds herself, not a wild animal. She has nothing to fear from Kit Tully’s bastard girl. It is very obvious the child was conceived well before they were betrothed, never mind wed. It is not as if he has betrayed her trust or been disloyal. He has simply done what all men do, what Robert still does, what Brandon was very lucky to avoid. She would be hard-pressed to name a noble house without bastards. There have been plenty of Snows with Stark fathers. 

“Yes,” says Kit, watching her and little Alayne intently. The child clearly knows him, for she seems to brighten and struggles to stand. But she is very quiet. Like her father, perhaps. “My lady, I apologize for not informing you sooner. But my father agreed that it would be best not to… taint our wedding day.”

“She is a child, not a monster,” Edda retorts, and is surprised at how immediate her defensiveness was. This is not her child, or any kin to her. She owes Alayne Rivers nothing. She may have no cause to hate her, but she certainly has no reason to like her. She should feel nothing for the girl at all beyond irritation or exasperated tolerance, like an unruly pet that must be endured so as not to insult her husband.

But- it is still just a child. She looks at Alayne, who looks back at her with great interest. She doesn’t feel any rush of love or protectiveness, but if she feels irritation, it is moreso at the fact that this would kept locked away from her like a dirty secret. Perhaps Hoster Tully, for all his pride, considers the girl such, is ill-pleased at having the child in his household. 

“What of her mother?” she asks, watching Kit carefully. He does not flinch or flush at the question. At least he is able to own up to it. Many young lords would react like chastened children at any discussion of their bastard’s conception. Or like Robert. She likely would feel a great deal more ire towards the girl if Kit had been bragging about siring her on their wedding night.

“Her mother cannot care for her,” he says, not breaking eye contact with her, although he does not approach the cradle. Mayhaps he thinks she will hold it against him for displaying any affection or fondness towards the girl in her presence. “She was… greatly shamed by the birth. That was my fault. I should have- well, I have tried to make it right by keeping her here. My father was… not of the same opinion, but he eventually agreed. She is of high birth. Her mother was a lady, not a…” 

“A whore, or a maid, or a farmer’s wife,” Edda rattles off in order, trying to keep the sarcasm from her tone. “And if she had been, you would have left her?” She knows she is verging on rude, and she should not be provoking an argument when he will be gone, perhaps forever, by the end of today. But she cannot help it. Men- men can be so thoughtless, can they not? Sowing their wild oats wherever they please and only bothering to pay a visit when the field they sowed them in belongs to nobility.

“I am a Tully,” Kit retorts, and it is the first real sign of temper she has ever seen in him. “We do not forsake our house words. Family comes first. Regardless of the circumstances.”

Edda presses her lips together, then gives a slight nod. “May I ask to what house her mother belongs? Will she…”

“Her mother has been married off,” Kit’s anger fades only moments after it has flared. “Alayne will never know her. She was a Frey,” he adds by way of explanation, and Edda accepts that easily enough, for the Freys are so numerous that it is a wonder the Twins can even hold them all. It is well known they have a penchant of pawning off daughters to whatever lords or knights will take them as soon as they are able. They jape that Walder Frey has an ambition to marry into every noble house in the realm, and he certainly has enough children and grandchildren to do so, twice over.

“But she will know you,” she says. “You intend to raise her here, as your acknowledged natural daughter.”

“I would see her treated as such, yes,” Kit frowns. “She will be known as Mistress Rivers when she comes of age, and I would have her recieve a lady’s education and marry as well as she is able, or take vows of the Faith, and become a septa.”

What girl would tolerate the idea of becoming a septa while her legitimate sisters make fine marriages and rule castles, Edda does not know. She glances down at Alayne, then back up at Kit. The silence stretches on. 

“But,” Kit continues, eyes clouded. “You are my wife now, and this will be your household to run. If you would like, when she is weaned I will send her to foster with another family. Not at the Twins,” he adds, at the look on Edda’s face. “The Pipers or Mallisters, perhaps. I would provide for her upbringing there, and she would be treated well enough.”

“But you would not see her,” Edda says. “She would be raised by strangers.”

“I would visit her when I am able,” but he gives a slight nod of agreement. He pauses. “Were she a son, I would not have her here past the weaning, Eddara. I would not have you worry about another woman’s boy taking what will belong to your son by rights. But… she is just a girl.” He is almost pleading, in a way. She is no threat to you, is what he is saying. You have nothing to worry about from Alayne Rivers. 

“Keep her here,” Edda says decisively, and Kit blinks in surprise. “She is your child, born well before our marriage. It is your right to raise her as you see fit. And she poses no threat to any children of ours. You are right. Were she a son, all the sympathy in the world would not allow me to keep her here, in this household. But she is a girl. She is not my daughter, and she will never be my blood, but she will be a sister to our sons and daughters.”

“I do not expect you to love her,” he does step closer to them both now, taking Edda’s hand gently in his own. She stiffens but does not pull away. “I understand how difficult this might be for you. And I thank you for your kindness in this, Edda. She has no mother, but I would have her grow up knowing she has always had a father.”

She thinks he is telling the truth, that he truly does love the girl, so she steps aside and lets him pick the child up. Alayne must be used to him, for she burbles happily and wraps her chubby arms around his neck, gazing around the colorful room. It is not just his new wife and his brother and his father he is leaving, Edda realizes now. This is his child. She will be an orphan should he die. Alayne would be entirely alone in the world. 

She leaves then, to give them some privacy. The loss of her own father, who seldom held her when she was small but who loved her all the same, is still raw enough that it hurts to look at them. The rest of the day is devoted to the final preparations before the soldiers at Riverrun join the rest of the rebel forces surrounding the Trident. She says her final prayers for them in the godswood with Benjen and the Mormont women. 

Then it is time. She does not want to let go of her little brother, who still seems far too young to be returning to a war that began with the murder of their father and brother, but she must, to allow Dacey to say her own goodbyes. Dacey, who is seeing off her mother as well, who chides her for her tears. “Come back in one piece,” Edda tells Ben, who grins his same old slightly rueful grin. 

“That’s the plan.”

Dacey embraces him as well, more like a friend than a wife, but Benjen kisses her quickly on the cheek all the same. 

Kit is saying goodbye to his younger siblings. Edmure is putting on a child’s brave face, refusing to cry or pout. Lysa spares barely a glance for her own husband, which Edda cannot really blame her for; she barely knows the man. She does cling to Kit, weeping, until he gently dislodges her at the sight of Edda.

His expression is uncertain; after this morning they do not know where they stand with one another. Edda feels uncertain herself. Is she angry with him? Yes. Does she hate him? No. Is she frightened for him? Of course. And if this is the last time she lays eyes upon Kit, she wants it to be a memory she can look back on without regret. She curtsies. “My lord.”

He bows. “My lady.”

Edda presses the scrap of fabric into his gloved hands before he can react. “It’s part of my wedding gown,” she says, ignoring the onlooking stares and murmurs. “Wear it around your arm as my favor in battle. And return to me as soon as you are able.”

He stares at it for a moment, then looks up at her, and his smile still makes butterflies flutter in her stomach, even now that they are wedded and bedded. “I will do so gladly.” He steps forward and cups her face to kiss her sweetly, and she returns it, nails scraping against the chainmail of his shirt.

And then they ride away. Stark and Tully and Baratheon and a sea of men around them, northern and southern alike. Lysa’s weeping dies away and she wipes at her face, flustered. Dacey stands still and resolute beside Edda, chin raised like a soldier herself. Alysane watches her mother leave with a open, wounded gaze, fists knotted in her skirt. And young Edmure stares angrily at the ground, shoulders heaving as he tries not to cry. Edda lays a hand on his shoulder, and feels him relax slightly. 

“It’s alright,” she says. “They’ll win.”

Now there is nothing to do but wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some key differences between Alayne and Jon and how Catelyn/Eddara react to their presence. Alayne is a girl and thus viewed by everyone as much less of a threat to the line of succession. They aren't worried about her potentially rallying supporters around her to challenge a trueborn Tully child for rule of the Riverlands. Edda says as much when noting that if Alayne were a son, she would not be comfortable with his presence. Additionally, Alayne was conceived and born well before the short betrothal/marriage of Kit and Eddara. While having a bastard at any point in time might still invite some dirty looks, especially given the prejudice they face in Westeros, Kit knows he will face no real censure/criticism for this. He didn't take a mistress or have an extramarital affair. Finally, Kit is a lot more upfront about Alayne (or at least seems to be a lot more upfront, since Edda trusts him and assumes he is being 100% honest with her right now) than Ned ever was with Cat about Jon. His assurances and offer to send Alayne to foster elsewhere once she is weaned if it will make Edda feel better go a long way, even if Edda doesn't intend to take him up on that offer.


	6. Kermit III

283 AC - THE TRIDENT

Kit has grown up on the Trident; swam and played it in countless times as a child, raced horses down its banks and steered skiffs through the currents. He fostered at Harrenhal from the age of nine onwards, loathe as his father was to let his heir go. The Trident is only a two day’s ride from Harrentown, and a three week’s ride from Riverrun for a large party. Now he stares out across the expanse of the three forked rivers, gleaming blue and green in the spring sunlight. It is a clear, warm day, with only a gentle breeze. The Trident should be crawling with boats. 

But for now it is silent, aside from the sounds of the horses and men shifting in their armor. Forty thousand royalists on one side of the ford. Thirty five thousand rebels on the other. Kit puts on a face of practiced calm for the sake of his squires, but inside he is paralyzed. The Stoney Sept was his first battle, but this is a true battlefield, like the ones they speak of in legends.

He pats the side of Oz’s neck to calm himself as Robert wheels his massive warhorse down the ranks of men, shouting words of valor and encouragement. Kit has never really disliked Robert, for the little that he knew him before the war, but now he has come to respect and even admire him as a commander. If there is one thing Robert Baratheon was born to do, it was to lead men into battle. He will lead the charge himself, and his boldness, whether feigned or not, is working; the old men have settled into grim acceptance of whatever comes, and the young men have rallied, their blood lust stirred.

Just because Kit is observant doesn’t mean he is immune. He wants it to begin. Anything is better than the waiting. He can’t stand the waiting. Whatever happens, let it happen, so long as he does not have to sit here and cringe from his own fear a moment longer. And he is frightened, of course he is. He will not pretend to have ever been some renowned warrior. He has always been better at the politics of it all than the fighting. He can swing a sword and bear a shield, aye, but that does not make him any better than any other man out here, waiting restlessly with him,

It will come down to luck, he knows. He has no control over what happens to him today. The lack of control is what terrifies him, the unpredictability of it all. He promised Edda he would return to her. He promised Edmure he would see him again. He promised Lysa… He catches his father’s gaze, only a few yards away, and manages to hold it steadily. Father gives a slow nod of approval, and Robert’s speech ends. He turns to face Rhaegar’s army, war hammer in hand.

“NOW,” Robert roars, heard by all even through his iron, antlered helm, and the first volley of arrows goes up. There is a returning roar, a terrible sort of screaming wave, and then the ford is a whirling sea of crashing waves as thousands of horses charge into the shallows all at once. Kit unsheathes his sword, and stops thinking at all. His field of vision narrows until all he can see is what is directly ahead of him. The water swirls a mottled red underneath him, and the sky looms that same oblivious, pleasant blue all the while. 

He doesn’t know what he is doing or who he is killing, only the same repeated hacking motion, guiding Oz around dying men and horses, barking commands to his squires as they strive to keep track of Robert and Benjen and Arryn and Father in the fray. Blows clang against his armor, and he narrowly avoids an axe to the helm, ducking low and then returning with a brutal thrust of his own sword. His muscles are burning and his ears are ringing and he’s too busy staying alive to be terrified.

Just a bit longer, he tells himself, as the morning stretches into midday. Just a bit longer, and it will end. You just have to live until sunset. He avoids looking at the faces of the dead men on the ground and in the water. Fortunately many of them have already sunken to the bottom. He catches a few quick glimpses of Rhaegar. His crimson cloak is soaked through with water and blood, clinging to his night black armor. Kit stays well clear. The prince isn’t his to kill, and he has seen enough men die trying to bring him down today. 

The battle roars on and on as the sun rises to its highest peak, then begins to slowly sink down in the sky. Clouds gather overhead, threatening rain by evening. If they are still fighting by then, it will truly be a bloodbath, with visibility ruined and horses sliding in the mud. Kit has lost count of how many times death has brushed by him today. More than in his previous eighteen years of life combined, he is sure.

And then it doesn’t just brush him, it seizes him. A savage blow glances off his armor but the next unhorses him; he hears Oz scream the way only horses can as he is felled. Kit is flung from the saddle and lands in three feet of fetid water. He loses his grip on his sword, and as he struggles up onto his knees, entire body screaming in pain, and his sword sinks into the thick mire of mud and corpses, he realizes he is a dead man. The soldier in the black and brown of House Darry bears down on him triumphantly, leans back for another swing, one that will cleave Kit’s neck in two.

Still, he scrabbles for his sword, in denial of this. He can’t go. He’s not meant to go like this. What about Edda? Alayne? He has things he must see through. It’s not time yet. Not here, not now. He’s too slow. As his fingers close around the hilt and death swings towards him, he feels a curdling lump in the back of this throat, as though he’s about to vomit. He can’t-

Robert’s warhammer smashes into the Darry man’s back, sending him sprawling from his horse with a strangled scream. Kit sucks in a grateful breath of air and clambers to his feet as Robert momentarily reins in his mount, eyes alight with battle, almost grinning down at him. “Try and keep a hold of your fucking sword, Tully! Can’t leave my good-sister a widow just yet,” he laughs like a madman, and Kit laughs himself, almost hysterical.

Before he can say anything else, thank Robert for saving him certain death, Robert has sobered and is gazing at something in the distance. “It’s time to end this,” he says, more to himself than to Kit, and than spurs his great black stallion into action. It would see he and Lyanna Stark had one thing in common after all: similar taste in horses.

Within the hour, Robert ends it, and Rhaegar crumples into the ford, fearsome winged helm knocked clear from his pale face. His army breaks and scatters in a panic; Lewyn Martell is dead as well. Kit helps Benjen pull Robert from the river and into a wagon. He is barely conscious and bleeding profusely from a great wound to his chest. “Stay awake,” Benjen is telling Robert, boy’s voice cracking in emotion, cuffing him around the face. “Come on, Robert! Stay awake, we’ve won.”

They have won, Kit realizes, although seeing the veritable sea of corpses surrounding them, it doesn’t feel like it. Robert’s blue eyes are glazed over, and he gazes up at the sky with an almost confused look on his face. Kit takes his limp arm. “You killed him,” he says, “you did it, Baratheon. Don’t die on us now. Come on. Let’s finish this.”

He wants nothing more than to turn and ride home for Riverrun as soon as it clear that the royalist forces have scattered, leaving the kingsroad clear. But there is still the Red Keep to march on. They must win the capitol if they hope to defeat the Targaryens once and for all. He cannot scurry back home now. Instead he sends off a raven to Riverrun, one of hundreds flying up into the air to deliver the news of the battle, telling his wife he is well enough, that she has nothing to fear from Rhaegar’s army now, that he will return to her as soon as the city is secured.

Robert will live, but he is in no shape to head off the Lannister forces advancing on King’s Landing. This falls to Benjen instead, and before this battle Kit would have questioned the wisdom of letting a sixteen year old lead the vanguard, but now his doubts are mostly laid to rest. Benjen will do it through sheer Stark determination if he must. And Kit will gladly be at his side. After the Trident, he cannot imagine that they have come this far only to fail to take the city. The gods wouldn’t permit such a thing, would they? They have to win. 

But they are too late, for the sack has already well begun by the time they reach the King’s Gate six weeks later. 

The city is covered in a haze of smoke, and entire streets of buildings, houses and shops and taverns and manses, reduced to ash. There are people running and screaming, everywhere, and Kit stares in almost childish horror as groups of soldiers and mercenaries pick through the rubble and gaunt children cower into the ruins, coated in dust. The soldiers around him sputter and cough on the smoke filling the air, and the sky is an ugly, unnatural shade of dark grey overhead.

Yet the Lannisters are on their side. Tywin convinced Aerys to open the gates for him, and repaid him with a whole-scale slaughter. His army of westermen easily overpowered the city guard and the royalists defending the castle. They had taken the city by nightfall, with scores of corpses piled up on street corners to show for it. Some of the men with Kit seem openly relieved; the dirty work has been already done, and they did not have to play the villains of this tale. Benjen is mute, and does not not say a word until they ride up into the throne room, all of them virtually unscathed despite the destruction around them.

Aerys’ corpse sprawls across the steps leading up to the Iron Throne; he resembles a withered old man more than anything else, lying limply in a dried pool of blood. Jaime Lannister reclines in the seat of the king he swore to guard with his life. For once he is not smiling; his face is utterly blank, and Kit realizes after a moment that he cannot be any older than seventeen. “Kingslayer,” the murmurs begin among the northern and rivermen behind them, but Benjen says nothing, and Kit does not know what to say.

For a moment Jaime Lannister seems as though he might speak, but then he rises to his feet, sheathes his bloody sword, and steps down from the throne. Benjen dismounts as the Kingslayer stalks past him. Ben stares at the throne for a long while, and then yanks off his cloak, throwing it over Aerys’ body. The man who murdered his brother and father. Kit sees just how much like Edda he is then; honorable to the very end, when he has every reason to spit on Aerys’ corpse. 

“Get me Tywin Lannister,” Benjen says roughly, and his voice does not crack now. “And send someone to find Princess Elia and her children.”

But Tywin Lannister gives the princess and her children to Robert five days later when he arrives with the rest of the rebel army. Robert declares them dragonspawn, and Kit could even forgive that. Robert cannot see past Rhaegar, and Lyanna is still missing. She is nowhere in the city, that is for certain. They have searched. Benjen believes she must be in Dorne, that Rhaegar had her spirited away, foreseeing this. 

Yet while Kit could forgive Robert’s blind rage and bloodlust in the pursuit of the woman he says he loves, he cannot forgive Tywin Lannister’s dismissal of his own slaughter. “Aerys had them killed when the sack began,” the Old Lion says, utterly straight-faced, barely sparing a second glance over the corpses of an innocent women and children at his feet. It is a blatant lie, and every man there knows it. Surrounded by Lannister soldiers whose armor is still blood-stained from taking the city, no one says a word. 

They only look. 

Kit sees the little girl Rhaenys in her blood-soaked smock, sees her dark hair and chubby fists. From a distance, lying face down on the marble floor, she could be Alayne. Someone stabbed her half a hundred times, enough to kill a grown man twice over, never mind a tiny little girl whose body was found halfway under her father’s bed. The babe Aegon is unrecognizable, a bloody bundle wrapped in a Lannister cloak. One of the squires nearly vomits at the sight of the infant. 

Elia Martell is naked. Someone has pried the rings off her stiff fingers and the jewels from her bruised throat. Kit remembers her from Harrenhal, before Rhaegar crowned Lyanna his queen of love and beauty. She was smiling and laughing on the first few nights of feasting, delicate Princess Elia, surrounded by her ladies in waiting. She danced a round with Lady Ashara Dayne, both of them murmuring to one another as they spun around the hall. 

Kit thinks of the nursery at Riverrun, of his last vivid memory of it, standing there with Edda and Alayne. He has a letter from home two days later. His wife is with child. She asks for names. There would be no letter if he were dead, and his child would come into the world fatherless. He has Robert Baratheon, for all his wrath and all his flaws, to thank for that. So he tells her that if it is a daughter she might name it for her own family. If it is a son, Robb. For their new king.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, there is a Robb Tully on the horizon. After some serious debate, for the sake of not confusing readers or myself, I do not plan on changing the names or ages of the Tully/Stark children. Yes, technically 'they don't have the same parents!', but it seemed silly to create essentially five original characters when there's already five kids of Ned and Cat from canon who we all know and love. As for the potential future children of Dacey and Benjen, the official 'Starks of Winterfell' in this universe... we'll see.


	7. Eddara IV

283 AC - RIVERRUN

Edda knows she is with child as soon as her courses are late for the first time. They have always been regular, but she does not say anything, part of her still afraid she will be proven wrong. The three of them; her, Dacey, and Lysa, are all in the same position, each with the expectations and hopes pinned upon them, that after one brief night they will have managed to conceive. When Lysa’s courses come, she retreats into her chambers for several days. Edda would seek to comfort her, but she barely knows the girl, and thinks it perhaps best that she be left alone.

On the other hand, Dacey is the one who confides in Edda that hers have not come either. And so a few weeks later Maester Luwin tells them both they are with child. Edda allows her a relieved smile, but Dacey looks uncharacteristically nervous. When Lysa hears she seems to try to smile, but it twists her small mouth into something like a grimace, and she makes some excuse to leave the room a few minutes later.

“It’s not her fault,” says Dacey. “Arryn is past sixty and he hasn’t gotten a living babe on any of his wives.” Dacey has made it quite clear what she thinks of Hoster Tully for wedding his sixteen year old daughter to a man old enough to be her grandfather. Edda is grateful that Lord Tully is not here, lest Dacey tell him those thoughts. She does not shy away from giving men her opinions bluntly and unabashedly. She makes Edda look almost meek in comparison.

“That may be true,” Edda sighs. “But that is not what people will say if she cannot give him an heir. If they do not have a child the Vale will pass to a Hardyng.”

Dacey shrugs. “If they let women inherit perhaps they could have avoided this.”

There is news from the Trident, from Kit, that the rebels have triumphed and are marching on King’s Landing. Edda is happy, of course, but she does not allow her hopes to drift too far. They could still lose everything during the siege, especially if the westermen come to the Crown’s aid at last. Ben and Kit could still be lost to her, and no amount of prayers would return them then.

When they are just gone ten weeks Dacey loses her babe in the night. Edda has taken to sharing a room with her and Alysane just because it is a bit less lonely. She wakes to find Dacey hunched over a growing stain in the mattress, sobbing hoarsely. It seems to go on for hours. In the morning Dacey is bed-bound in another room with Aly, and servants cart out the ruined mattress and sheets to be burned. 

A fortnight later there are scattered reports that Aerys is dead and King’s Landing taken, but no official confirmation. Edda sends word to the capitol that she is with child anyways, now that she is officially three months pregnant, and Maester Luwin says the risk of losing the babe is far less. She cannot imagine anything more painful than telling Kit he is to be a father, and then snatching it away from him a few weeks or months later.

After she sends the raven, with the help of Edmure, who enjoys showing her how to do things at Riverrun, even things she already knows how to do but is too polite to refuse, she seeks out Dacey in the godswood. To her surprise, Aly is not with her. Dacey is wearing trousers again; despite the murmuring of their maids, there is hardly anyone here to tell her otherwise. She lies sprawled on the ground, all six feet of her, staring up at the sky. It is very warm out; they say they will have summer in the next year. 

Edda sits down beside her, adjusting her skirts. “Ben will return by next year,” she says as confidently as she is able. “And then you two will have time to… To get to know one other again.”

“My mother would be furious with me,” Dacey admits flatly. “Weeping and sulking like a child over a lost babe. She told me about all her… about the ones she lost before my wedding. To warn me. I know it wasn’t my fault, but I still feel like I-,” she struggles for words, “like I caused it.”

“You didn’t cause anything,” Edda says sharply. “Any midwife would tell you that it happens to many women. You’re young. You will be a mother someday.” Unconsciously she strokes her own belly, the slight curve of it beneath her clothes, only visible when she is undressing for the night.

“But I wasn’t happy enough,” Dacey admits, and here her voice does fracture a little. “I wasn’t happy. I should have been. That’s why your brother married me, to have an heir. But I- I didn’t want it to happen like that. I was pleased enough to lie with him, but to have his child while he was off to war, cooped up here like an animal?” Her expression crumples and she shakes her head. “I didn’t want that. So… maybe part of me was hoping it wouldn’t come true, and then it didn’t. Like a witch,” she wipes at her nose and mouth.

“You are not a witch,” says Edda, and she leans over and embraces Dacey, who feels like a sister now, after all these months together. “Don’t be silly. You can’t wish a child away anymore than you can wish one into being. You can’t help how you felt. Ben wouldn’t hold it against you. He’s not the sort. He will be happy so long as you are safe.”

“He made me laugh on our wedding night,” Dacey snorts a little, in spite of her tears. “He said, ‘Well, I’m no bear, my lady, but if you like I can grow a beard while I’m gone.”

Edda laughs at that, feeling a flood of warmth for her brother, for his lightness. Ben has always been able to make anyone laugh. Even Father. He was even a happy baby; he rarely even cried, it seemed. It was something they all needed, after losing Mother. 

For the rest of her pregnancy she sews blankets and baby clothes and tries to imagine her own child in the nursery. She hopes they look like Kit. She has nothing against her own appearance, but she thinks a Tully child should have the Tully look. Once she dreams of a gaggle of little children with Kit’s auburn hair and bright blue eyes, peering up at her with freckled cheeks. She thinks Riverrun will be a nice place for a child to grow up. She still misses Winterfell, but there were parts of her childhood that were as harsh as the wolfswood around it. She doesn’t want harshness and the cold for her children. She wants them to have an easy, happy childhood.

King’s Landing truly has fallen. The king is dead. The princess is dead, and Rhaegar’s children. The queen and Prince Viserys are missing, suspected to have escaped to Dragonstone. And Lyanna has not been found. They have crowned Robert king. Edda cannot think of anything Robert might despise more than the throne. She is sorry for him, truly. Ben writes that he means to go to Dorne, to find their sister at last. And Kit asks that she name the child Robb if it is a boy.

“Robb,” Aly wrinkles her snub nose. “Ugly name, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be rude,” Dacey pulls on her ear sharply. “Robb Tully doesn’t sound so bad.”

“It doesn’t,” Edda agrees, rolling the name around on her tongue. It is better than ‘Robert’, at any rate. Or Hoster, she supposes. Or Elmo. 

“I hope it’s a boy,” Edmure says, although so far he has feigned boyish indifference to the possibility of a niece or nephew. “He can be my squire when I’m a knight.” 

Dacey does bark a laugh at that. “Just think, Edda, to see your own boy take the southern vows.” The North has very few knights, after all.

“Then perhaps I should pray for a girl,” Edda says dryly, and even Lysa smiles in amusement at that.

She still does know what to make of Lysa. While Kit is almost shockingly straightforward, his sister is another matter entirely. Edda has made small talk with her and sewed with her and dined with often enough, but she still does not know her good-sister very well. Lysa is often shy and tongue-tied, and seems almost intimidated by the Mormont sisters. But she does love her brother; Edda can often find her playing with Edmure, running through the gardens or hiding in alcoves.

Such behavior seems childish for a woman wed, but Edda would give anything for one more afternoon of play with her own brothers and sister, so she cannot really begrudge Lysa this. After Lord Arryn returns Lysa will be sent off to the Vale, with no company aside from her husband and his courtiers. It makes Edda more grateful for what she will have here at Riverrun. Husband’s bastard and all. 

Naively, Edda has assumed she could simply overlook Alayne’s existence due to her age. She had imagined it might even be easy to forget that Kit’s daughter was there at all. She had no intentions of being cruel to the child, but she had no intentions of swooping in to mother her, either. Yet now Alayne is less a babe, able to toddle around and play, and it is difficult to ignore her presence when she is riding on Edmure’s shoulders or being carried on Dacey’s hip; her and Aly are rather fond of the child, as if they feel they need to make up what are sure to be years of derision and snide comments about her birth in the future.

Edda would not say she suddenly warms to the girl and feels some kinship with her, but she does learn to tolerate Alayne, who is still very quiet but frequently involved in all sorts of mischief, crawling when she cannot walk, hiding from Edmure behind doors and under beds. It is amusing, if nothing else, and part of Edda is glad that her child will have a playmate here. Even if she is not sure how she will explain the concept of half-siblings to them.

Yet Lysa, for all her obvious enjoyment of playing with Edmure, seems to always vanish whenever Alayne is around. Edda is not sure if it because she dislikes the child for her bastard birth, and wishes Kit had never brought her to their home, or because it reminds Lysa of her own childless state. Perhaps it is a combination of both. Edda tries to think of how she might have felt, had Brandon ever brought home a natural son or daughter.

Father would have been furious, she knows that. She overheard him telling Brandon once, coldly and flatly, that he was not to give any whore or serving girl reason to show up at their gates with a grey-eyed babe. “If you must spill your seed, mind where it falls,” she remembers Father saying, and the brief glimpse she caught of her brother’s red face, humiliated to be discussing such a thing with his own father.

When blunt Aly asks Lysa about how Hoster Tully reacted to the news, Lysa simply stares at her as if she had been doused with cold water. Then her cheeks flare up scarlet. “Little girls shouldn’t ask such dirty questions,” she snaps, throwing down her needlework and standing up. “Excuse me.” She stalks out of the room, her hands in white-knuckled fists at her sides.

“I’m not a little girl,” Alysane scowls after her, but Dacey jabs her sister with her needle, ignoring her yelp.

“You don’t ask southern ladies such things. Especially not that one.”

Edda frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, the servants speak to me a bit more freely than they do you, Lady Stark,” Dacey replies dryly. “And I have it on good authority that Lysa Tully was besotted with the Baelish boy.”

“Littlefinger?” Edda struggles to even recall what he looks like; she’s not sure if they’ve ever met. All she knows is that he fostered at Riverrun. Edmure mentions him from time to time, saying they were friends. 

“Aye,” says Dacey, “and rumor has it that’s why she was wed to Arryn. She gave her maidenhood to Littlefinger and his little…” she inclines her head, and Alysane snorts with laughter, before Dacey cuffs her. “Watch your mouth. Mayhaps she thought her father’d wed him to her, once they’d lain together. Her husband may be Warden of the East, but he is no prize for Lysa.”

Edda just shakes her head, but she thinks on it. It could just be idle chatter; Lysa may have loved the boy, and he her, but that’s not to say they ever bedded one another. But if they had… it would explain her marriage. Ordinarily a man like Hoster Tully would have demanded a much younger match for his only daughter. Jon Arryn has a high title, but his age does not an ideal husband make. 

Perhaps Lysa sees in Kit’s child what she could have had with Petyr Baelish. Or perhaps it rankles at her, that her brother could lie with any woman he pleased, and it would not affect his marriage prospects. It’s not Edda’s business either way, so she tries to put it out of her mind. Something still gnaws at her, however, and she’s not quite sure why. What should she care what Lysa thinks of Alayne Rivers? Unless she knows something Edda does not.

Her pregnancy advances, and her worries shift from Alayne Rivers to her own child. Her confinement begins, although she negotiates for a walk outside twice a day, once after breakfast and once after dinner. Sick to death of sewing, she reads instead, pouring over scrolls and tomes concerning the history of House Tully and the Riverlands. Or she listens to Lysa play the harp. Or to Dacey and Aly’s bickering. Or she writes to Kit, and entrusts the letter to Edmure to send off.

Or she dreams of Lyanna, and wakes up in tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edda is about as slow on the uptake as Ned is in canon when it comes to 'who is the father?'.


	8. Kermit IV

283 AC - THE TOWER OF JOY

Kit kills his mother’s cousin in the Prince’s Pass, surrounded by the red mountains of Dorne. Ser Oswell was a Whent by birth who took the white cloak when Kit was thirteen. He doesn’t remember his mother very well; she died when he was eight; but he remembers she was fond of Oswell. Kit thrusts his sword through the man’s ribs after Oswell splits his chin open; blood streams down his neck and chest as he wrenches the blade loose. 

Oswell, who shares Kit’s red hair, looks at him in wide-eyed alarm and mumbles something as he dies. A few scant yards away, Maege Mormont pries her mace loose from Gerold Hightower’s back. Benjen is on his hands and knees in the dirt, breathing heavily beside Arthur Dayne’s corpse. Howland Reed wipes the blood off his long knife, head bowed under the setting sun. The three kingsguard are dead. So are Theo Wull, Willam Dustin, Ethan Glover, Martyn Cassel, and Mark Ryswell.

Had someone told Kit a year ago that he would find himself in Dorne killing Kingsguard alongside a Stark, a Mormont, and a Reed, he thinks he would have laughed himself to death. Now he paws at his bloody chin and squints up at the diminutive tower; it can be no more than three floors. Ben struggles to his feet, using Ice as a crutch. He took a bad blow to the left leg from Dayne, more than once. It’s a wonder he can walk at all.

“You shouldn’t be using that leg,” Kit finally says, as Benjen takes a shaky step towards the tower. “Wait here, we’ll go-,”

“Lyanna’s in there,” the boy says stubbornly, although Kit supposes he is a man now, after everything. “I won't make her wait any longer.”

Kit has heard all about Lyanna’s famous temper on the way to Dorne. Ben was certain they would find her spitting mad, infuriated that she’d been made to wait so long for rescue, anxious to get home. But if she was truly locked away in this small tower in the middle of a what Kit can only term a wasteland, he is not so sure Benjen will find the outspoken older sister he remembers. It would be enough to break any man’s spirit, never mind a girl of sixteen.

Inside the tower they find several terrified servants huddled on the narrow stairwell. 

“Stand aside and we’ll do you no harm,” says Maege, with a meaningful look to her mace, and they scatter. 

“Lyanna!” Benjen yells hoarsely as they clamber up the worn stairs. Kit winces at the heat inside the stone tower. It may not be summer yet, but in Dorne it might as well be. He wipes at dried blood and sweat on the back of his neck as they reached the top. Two maids stand in front of a half open door, staring in shock at them. One is holding a bundle in her arms.

Maege gives a slow sigh, as if something was just confirmed to her.

Ben stares. “Where’s Lyanna?” he demands. One of the girls licks her lips nervously, and the other clutches the bundle protectively, backing against the wall. It makes a faint whimpering sound. “What is that?” But Kit knows he must know. They all know what it is.

Benjen strides forward towards the room, although he must be in great pain from his leg. Kit means to go after him, but Howland grabs his arm, giving him a silent but pointed look. The rest of them stay where they are as Ben disappears into the room. There are a few tense moments of utter silence, and then a low cry.

Kit can’t wait any longer. He fought a war for this girl, this family. 

Lyanna Stark looks much smaller and frailer than he remembers, lying in bed. Her face is flushed and gleaming with sweat, and the room reeks of blood and roses, presumably to mask the smell. The smell is her dying. Lyanna is delirious with fever, shaking and fidgeting under the thin sheets, her familiar grey eyes unfocused. She has the same eyes as Edda, and it unnerves Kit to see those eyes in such a state.

Benjen kneels like a child at her side, clutching her limp hands in his own. “Lya, I’m here,” he says desperately, trying to get her to look at him. “It’s me, it’s Ben. You’re safe now. I’m here, I came for you, Lya- Lyanna, look at me, it’s Benjen. You remember me. I know you do. Just look at me, Lya. It’ll be alright.”

“My lord, she is already far gone,” Maege says in a much more subdued tone than usual, with none of her usual gruffness.

“No,” Benjen doesn’t even glance up from her. “It’s Lyanna, she’s strong. She’ll be alright. She had a fever when we were small, and she fought it off.”

“Not this fever,” says Maege, and it finally sinks in for Kit where all the blood came from. It’s from the babe in the maid’s arms. Birthing the child has killed her. 

“They had no maester,” he says, and feels a dull pang of horror. Lyanna Stark is not his sister, but he can still feel for her. She must have been terrified, going through a pregnancy and childbirth alone like this, without even a midwife to aid or comfort her. 

“Ben?” Lyanna rasps, and they all stop talking. She seems to finally have realized her brother’s presence. “Ben,” she says, face screwing up, tears streaking down her cheeks. “You came.”

“I’m right here,” Benjen says, pushing her thick, matted hair back from her face. “Don’t worry, Lya. I’ve got you. We’re going to go home now.”

“I want to go home,” she agrees faintly, and seems to sag a little in his arms, even as he tries to stir her.

“No, keep talking Lya. You can get through this,” he urges her, voice breaking. “You have to fight.”

Lyanna seems frightened by something the rest of them cannot see or hear. She glances up at Benjen in open terror, seizing with the fever. “Ben, please. Please, you- you have to promise me. I can’t… Promise me you’ll protect him.”

“The baby?” Ben is stroking her hair soothingly, the way a mother might a child, although his hands are still coated in dirt and blood from the fight. “The babe will be alright, Lya. We’ll take care of it. You and me and Edda.”

“No,” Lyanna sobs, “no, I… He’ll kill him, please. Please promise me, Ben. Promise me you won’t let Robert hurt him.”

Benjen goes very still. “Robert… Robert just wants to see you again. He would never-,”

“It’s Rhaegar’s,” she says through gritted teeth, although they all already know that. “He’ll kill him, I know he will. I’m so sorry, Ben. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… I want to go home,” she is weeping now, squeezing her brother’s hands. “I want to go home, Ben. But you have to promise me…”

Kit leaves with the others then, to give them what little time they have left together alone. He remembers the two Stark siblings like that for years afterwards; Ben bent over his feverish sister, and her soft cries and white-knuckled grip on his bloody hands, chanting “Promise me,” like a prayer.

A few hours later, they build several pyres for the dead. Lyanna’s body is burned last. Benjen intends to bring her bones back to Winterfell with him. Her son is suckling at his wetmaid; a robust boy of perhaps a few days old. He has a shock of dark hair, and while all infants eyes are light, Kit suspects they will turn grey over time, not violet. 

“We cannot bring the child back to the king,” Howland says. Ben sits on the ground, his head hung low between his bent knees.

“Not as the son of Rhaegar,” Maege agrees. She looks down at Benjen, her expression momentarily softening in an almost maternal manner, before it hardens once more. “He will have to be claimed a Stark.”

“How?” Benjen asks roughly, without looking up.

“You could claim him as your own bastard,” Maege says. “But I think it best you say the boy is Brandon’s. By the time we return to King’s Landing he will be old enough that no one would know whether he was simply small for his age or not. Tell Robert you found the child at Starfall, with the Daynes.”

Kit knows what she is alluding to. Even if the boy goes on to have his father’s eyes, well, that is a common enough trait among House Dayne as well. As seen from Lady Ashara in particular. There is a long silence before Ben gives a jerky nod of agreement. “I’ll call him Jon,” he says after a few moments. “It’s common enough.”

And so they return not with Lyanna Stark but with her bones and a bastard boy. When Kit lies down at night on his bedroll he dreams of Lysa and how she sobbed and wept when he… Well, when he did what was best for everyone. He felt like a monster then. He feels helpless now. What can he say to Benjen Stark, who has no family left at all but Eddara? 

What is there to say to someone who has lost almost everything?

Ben will not speak of it, although he straps the babe to his chest when they travel and sings to him at night. All he will say, weeks later, is that he wishes he had been the one to kill Rhaegar at the Trident, rather than Robert. If Lyanna was willing to go with the prince a year ago at Harrentown… well, she was not willing to stay in that tower by the end of it all.

It may be rude but Kit cannot bring himself to return to King’s Landing, not when his own child is either already born or on their way. He separates from the rest of them and rides hard for Harrenhal, to return Oswell Whent’s sword to his remaining family. Then it is on to Riverrun.

He returns home to find that as of five weeks ago, he has a son. His wife greets him with infant in her arms, and while Edda’s mouth is not smiling, her eyes crinkle around the corners when she sees him dismount, and then is embracing both of them and feeling as though he might awake at any moment to find himself back in Dorne, having dreamed it up.

“This is Robb, my lord,” she says, giving the boy over to him. 

Robb is one of the most beautiful things Kit has ever seen. He is a plump babe with downy copper hair and a strong grip. To Kit’s surprise, he can already hold his head up, and follow their movements with his very blue eyes, gurgling happily. “He reminds me of Ben as a baby,” Edda says. “He hardly cries at all.”

“Edmure was like that,” Kit recalls with a smile, for when his brother saw him riding for the castle he came racing out, yelling Kit’s name and almost spooking his horse. He has barely left Kit’s side since, as if afraid he might disappear again.

But as overjoyed as he is, it is not all happy. He has to tell Edda of her sister, after all. She disappears into the godswood with the Mormont sisters for nearly two days straight after that, before returning to him in the evening, face drawn and pale but eyes dry. She apologizes for neglecting Robb in her grief.

Kit embraces her, and because they have rarely hugged apart from his return, she sits there somewhat awkwardly before wrapping an arm around him as well. “You have nothing to apologize for,” he murmurs. “Least of all neglecting Robb. He could not ask for a better mother.”

“Kit, he can’t speak,” says Edda, wrinkling her nose, and they look at each other for a moment and then laugh a little, breathless.

He feels like a green boy, holding his wife’s hand. Her skin seems oddly soft after months of only feeling leather and iron. When Ben finally returns from the capitol he will leave with Dacey and Alysane, and she will truly be alone here. Lysa has already left for the Vale. Kit has resolved to write her, but he is not sure whether he will ever get a reply. He knows his sister intends to never speak to Father again, for sending Petyr away. 

But for now he and Edda are together and he feels as though he is slightly lightened by this, being home once again, by some gradual return to normalcy. They have a king, one who is not mad nor the product of generations of incest. They have a peaceful land, although they are still finding bodies washed up on the river banks. And above all else, they have a son. He squeezes Edda’s hand lightly, and she looks up at him with a soft, sad smile before squeezing back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally I had hoped to cover the majority of Robert's Rebellion in about 2/3 chapters. We all see how well that worked out. Luckily we're finally winding down from war and drama and into the sweet stuff.


	9. Eddara V

284 AC - RIVERRUN

Edda’s year ends with Ben and Jon Snow and begins with Kit and Alayne Rivers. Her brother arrives a month after her husband, skin tanned and weathered from the hot sun and a grey-eyed babe in his wiry arms. He says the child’s mother was Lady Ashara, who rumors say threw herself into the sea upon the news of her brother’s death. Other rumors say it was after a heartless Stark pried her babe from her arms. Either way, Edda knows better, although Robert does not. Jon is no son of Brandon’s. She knew Lyanna’s face almost better than her own in the mirror, and she sees it once more now.

She wonders if Dacey knows as well, or at least suspects, but that is a matter between husband and wife. Ben is changed; quiet and brusque and with new lines on his face. He looks older than sixteen. But then again, she looks older than one-and-twenty. He presents her with Father’s sword, now his own, and Edda blesses it in the godswood for him as best she knows how, although she feels the old gods are weakened here. Perhaps that it was they could not bring Lyanna back alive to her. She would wish for peace for her sister, but wild Lya would scoff at the thought of slumbering peacefully like some princess from a story.

The Northmen say when a man dies he goes not to heavens or hells but back into the earth, into the roots and trunks and branches of trees. She would like to believe that Lyanna is in the wind that dances through the trees and races across meadows. She would like to believe that her sister is freer now than she ever was in life, that wherever she may be, she is watching over them, and that she is happy. Benjen cut a few locks of Lyanna’s hair. Edda keeps one, turns it over in the palm of her hand, gleaming dark brown, almost black, in the sunlight.

Then her brother leaves with his wife and the remainder of the Northern forces. 

“I will not come south again,” Ben tells her before he goes, and the look on his face makes her heart ache. “But Winterfell will always be your home, sister. You will always be welcome there.”

“You didn’t have to tell me that,” Edda says, but embraces him and makes him promise to write and promises to visit when Robb is old enough to travel. 

Dacey presents her with a new bow set as a parting gift. The arrows are northern pine and cedar. She makes Edda promise to use it, refuses to cry, and instead ruffles Robb’s soft hair and mounts her horse with ease, Alysane following behind her on a pony. They are all gone three weeks before the new year, and with their departure comes the summer in all its glory, Edda’s first in the south.

With their departure also comes a realization, that Alayne is no more Kit’s daughter than Jon is Brandon’s son. She cannot pinpoint exactly when it struck her, but there was some common thread between Ben and Kit, between the way they looked and sounded when Ben told her this was their brother’s child and Kit told her this was his child. Now she has come to realize that it was because both were lying. That was the similarity. 

Kit is- was- a better liar than her brother, no question of it, but he was ill at ease with the lie all the same. He did not falter, but neither did Ben. Both felt as though they had no choice. And now that Hoster Tully has returned, with the way he looks at little Alayne… She sees it now. Kit is very obviously his father’s favorite child. Hoster might be displeased with a bastard, but there would not be that coldness were the girl his precious boy’s. He sees nothing of Kit in Alayne. Because what there is of Kit in Alayne is not really Kit at all.

Edda believes she will be able to keep her suspicions to herself. Really, in the long run, what should it matter? It is not as it is with Jon. The child’s life is not in danger. There is no great risk here. The lie was kindly meant. It is just a little girl. Yet with every passing day and week she thinks of it more and more until it is all she can think of. She just has to know for sure. She just wants to hear him say it. She is not sure why. She is not even sure how angry she is. Angry he lied, of course. But angry with him? She doesn’t know, and now that Dacey is gone she has no one to confide in and-

It all comes spilling out when Robb is five months old. He can sit up and roll over and makes familiar sounds when he sees her. He sleeps through the night now, in his cradle at the foot of her and Kit’s bed. They do share a bed now, more often than not, although they are not trying to conceive a second child already. There is far less urgency and far more time for- well, time for things she had not hoped for in the marriage bed. Troubled or not, the sounds Kit is capable of provoking from her are far from worrisome. 

They are lying in bed, legs comfortably entwined, her hand flat on his chest. She can feel his steady heartbeat underneath it. She thinks she will know now if he is lying to her. Is it manipulative of her to ask him like this? Maybe. But she thinks she has a right to hear the truth if they can lie together for their own pleasure, if they can speak to one another as friends. “Kit,” she murmurs, rolling over to face him.

He smiles drowsily through half-lidded eyes at her. “Yes?” His hand comes up to stroke her hair, pushing it out of her face.

“Is Alayne Lord Baelish’s son?” she whispers, and he freezes, his hand still in her hair. His smile vanishes. Under her palm, his heartbeat accelerates. He doesn’t even have to answer. She knows.

Kit’s bleary look dissipates, and he sits up in bed to regard her not coldly, but certainly less warmly than he had been a moment ago. Considering. 

“You know I would never use it against you,” says Edda, and she thinks he believes her from the way his gaze flits up from her mouth to her eyes. He gives a barely perceptible nod.

“To the world, she is my daughter,” he says firmly. “And she will remain my daughter until my dying day.”

“But Lysa is her mother,” Edda props herself up on her elbows, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“After Brandon died she was inconsolable,” Kit says stiffly. “She had been dreaming of marrying him for years. He was her future.”

“She barely knew him,” Edda whispers. It is not a condemnation; she barely knew Kit. Robert barely knew Lyanna. Ben barely knew Dacey.

“Then he was gone, and she was heartbroken. Petyr had always been her friend. Our friend. We grew up with him. He is- he was like a little brother to me,” Kit scowls and runs a hand through his hair. “I- I was a fool not to see it coming. They used to play at kissing games as children. I thought nothing of it then. It was innocently meant. This…” he trails off, shaking his head in either disgust or frustration.

“You think he manipulated her?” Edda questions more sharply.

“I think she had always been drawn to him and that he certainly enjoyed the attention. But what boy wouldn’t? Lysa is beautiful, the daughter of a high lord. Petyr was…”

“Beneath her,” Edda finishes the thought for him.

“Yes,” Kit snaps. “Beneath her. In title, certainly. She would never have been permitted to wed him. He knew this. But… to hear him tell it, it was a drunken whim on both their parts. Lysa thought our lord father would allow the marriage if she came to him pregnant with Petyr’s child. But she came to me first.”

“And you… told her you’d claim the child as your own?” Edda frowns. 

“I told her I would speak to Father about it, and lucky that I did, for his idea of solving it would have been to force moon tea down her throat until she bled it out,” Kit’s voice wavers slightly, and he looks away as if shamed, although it not his shame. Hoster or Lysa’s, Edda is not sure, may never be sure.

“She was gone far enough in the pregnancy by then that it would have been more dangerous than carrying the babe to term,” Kit says. “I told him he’d have to go through me first, or that I’d spirit her off somewhere myself, if she was not safe in our own keep. We fought. Badly. I do not think he has quite forgiven me, nor me him.”

“Your father loves you,” Edda squeezes his shoulder. “Just as you love Robb.” She has seen it with her own eyes. When Hoster Tully looks at his heir, he sees all his hopes realized. Kit is everything a man could ask for in a son.

“Then I pray that Robb is never in a similar situation,” Kit mutters. “But he relented. Lysa would have the babe here in secret, and we would present it as my bastard, not hers. She could still make a good marriage as a ruined woman. As a mother to a bastard child…”

“Does Jon Arryn know?” Edda looks at him intently.

Kit pauses, and then says, “He… may. If he does, he is just as willing as the rest of us to look the other way.”

This is no doubt made much easier, Edda thinks, by the fact that Arryn will never have to lay eyes on his wife’s natural child.

“I doubt Lysa will ever forgive me for taking her daughter,” Kit says. “But I do not regret it, most days. This is the best life Alayne could have, here, as my child.” He looks at her steadily. “I did lie to you, Edda. But you can see why I felt it necessary, at the time.”

“Yes,” says Edda. She knows Kit must also know the truth of Jon Snow, but they will not speak of that. There is nothing to be gained by either of them from it, and this was enough talk of secrets for one night. “Thank you for not denying it when I asked,” she tries to sound reassuring, because she knows she looks as serious as ever. “I may not like it, but I will come to understand, I think.”

She is troubled by thoughts of poor Lysa, alone now in the Eyrie with only Ser Brynden for company, her husband away at court arranging Robert’s marriage to Cersei Lannister. But in the morning when she wakes to find Kit sitting up with Robb on his chest, talking to him softly, and her worries melt away. Her own father would have never done such a thing. Perhaps this is something to be said for southern ‘softness’ after all. 

A few days later Kit takes her out riding, something she has not been able to due in what seems like a year, and they roam alongside the banks of the Red Fork, passing the occasional fisherman. When they reach a deserted stretch of river Kit dismounts and ties up the horses. Edda is perfectly capable of dismounting herself, but she does not object to his hands around her waist. She has never worn a dress this thin and light before; she feels almost nude.

When her husband begins to heave off his tunic she makes a disbelieving noise before Kit grins at her. She has not seen him look so carefree in some time. She forgot how much she missed that lightness in him. It is what drew her to him in the first place. He seemed so unburdened and boyish. He is not the boy she longed after anymore, but she appreciates the man who wades into the river and raises an eyebrow at her.

Edda glances around briefly, then yanks at her stays, loosening her gown before tearing it off. She was self conscious of her body in front of him when he first returned, for after Robb her stomach does not lie as flat, and there are dark stretch marks leading down to her sex. But by now he has since dispelled any fears of him no longer wanting her. Clad only in her small-clothes, she wades into the water herself, welcoming the cold of it.

“If anyone sees us-,”

“If anyone sees us they won’t think twice of it,” Kit says breathlessly, after diving down deep and resurfacing, his soaked hair flat against his head. “We would not be the first couple to be found taking a morning swim, or the last.”

“Very well,” says Edda, “then you will not mind me doing this.” She splashes him, fighting back the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Her husband gapes at her, then smirks. “I hope you are not vain about your hair, my lady.”

“I can’t- imagine what you mean-,” Edda chokes out between giggles as she rapidly scrambles away from him in the shallows, “my lord- Kermit!” she shrieks when he grabs her, easily heaving her over his shoulder before sending both of them toppling into the deeper water.

They both resurface spluttering and laughing, and Edda scoops up a handful of mud and flings it at him, before running out of the water as he gives chase. The horses look on placidly, batting away flies with their tails, as their masters shriek and yell like children, stomping in and out of the water and swatting at each other.

Some time later, they sit together contentedly under a tree, waiting to dry off. 

“When he’s older, we can bring Robb and teach him how to swim,” Edda murmurs.

“Oh, he’ll be old enough in a few more months,” she can feel Kit’s amused smile on her without even looking at him.

“He may be a Tully, but he is not a fish,” Edda snorts. She learned to swim at four or five, she thinks, in the hot springs. Brandon taught her and Lyanna together. Chiefly by throwing them in headfirst, bullying older brother that he was when they were small. She misses him.

“He’ll take to it naturally,” Kit remains confident. “You’ll see.”

To her surprise, he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been waiting several chapters to write this bit of fluff at the end, so I'm as relieved as the rest of you to put the Rebellion behind us. The story will begin to go through much more frequent time skips now, just as a note of forewarning, since so much happened in 232/283 AC and now things have begun to slow down while the realm recovers.


	10. Kermit V

286 AC - RIVERRUN

Kit is reading to Robb and Alayne in the garden when his daughter is born. Edda has told him this pregnancy was easier than her first, and he still feels some measure of the guilt for not being there for that. He may have only missed a month of Robb’s life, but now that his firstborn is three time seems to move much quicker. Just yesterday Robb was still a toddling babe. Now he is a little boy, running and jumping and laughing with his sister.

He had intended to wait in the hall outside, pacing up and down in a dark cloud of worry, but Edda made him promise to stay with their son while she was in labor. Her water broke two hours ago, and now the sun is finally starting to sink low in the sky, blue fading to a rich orange and gold. Kit has never seen a more beautiful sunset anywhere else than in the Riverlands, and though he knows he is blinded with nostalgia for his home, he is glad to be here, right now, rather than anywhere else. These past three years of peace seem so precious after the war.

“And so the Fisher King returned home to rest in the Misty Isle, where the reeds whispered to the catfish and the birds did not dare sing but an hour a day-,” Kit pauses, as Robb has almost certainly fallen asleep on his chest, small fist clenched in his father’s tunic. He is dire need of a haircut, but Edda says she cannot bring herself to have his auburn curls trimmed just yet. Father says he looks just like Kit as a boy, but Kit sees Edda in his slightly bashful smile.

Alayne prods him impatiently. “Papa, finish the story,” she says, tugging at his arm. Alayne is four, only a year older than Robb, but she seems much older at times. Perhaps it is her quiet nature, or perhaps it is because she is a bastard. Sheltered she may be, but the saying goes that bastards grow up quickest, and there must be some truth to it. At the very least, Kit thinks, she has yet to ask him about her mother, although she calls him Papa and Edda Lady Edda, so she must realize Robb and her do not share a mother. 

“Shall we?” Kit teases her in a quiet voice, pushing Robb’s hair out of his eyes as he mumbles in his sleep. “What if we wake your brother?”

Alayne’s blue eyes, nearly identical to Robb’s, narrow in childish disdain. “So?” she sighs, turning them on him, and resting her chin on the crook of his elbow. Her brown curls have darkened slightly with age, and run the risk of escaping from the faded green ribbon tying them back. For a moment her pouting expression reminds him so much of Lysa that he feels a bit sick. Then it fades.

“Alright,” he concedes. “Would you like to read with me?” Alayne is very clever; she can already write her name (or a scrawl approaching it) and sound out some of her letters. Were she a son, Kit thinks she would make a fine maester. Then again, were she a son, she would not be here to read with him. He is secretly hoping Edda is birthing a girl at this very moment. He loves Robb more than life itself, but he has sometimes thought about a daughter with Edda’s solemn grey eyes.

“Hih- Hiz lah-,”

“His lady,” Kit corrects gently as she mouths the words.

“His lady wi-white-,” Alayne smiles triumphantly, not noticing her father’s amused smile.

“His lady wife, Alayne.”

She pauses and frowns. “What’s a lady wife?”

“Eddara is my lady wife. I am a lord and she is a lady, so I am her lord husband and she is my lady wife.” He knows she knows what a wife is. It would be impossible not to, with the amount of weddings held in the Riverlands since the end of the war. 

“Am I a lady?” she asks inquisitively, and he is debating how to explain to a four year old girl that she is not a lady because she is illegitimate and stands to inherit no title or lands when Ravella Smallwood comes hurrying over to him, lifting her skirts in her haste.

Kit immediately lifts Robb off his chest and scrambles to his feet, ignoring Alayne’s complaints as his worries come washing back over him like the tide. The children had been good distractions from the stress of knowing Edda was in the birthing bed, and he knows now that is why she wanted him with Robb- for his own benefit, not their son’s, who is barely old enough to understand how a child is born. Now he is wracked with the sudden hollow fear that something, anything, has gone terribly wrong. It seems too early. Edda said she labored for over five hours with Robb. It has barely been half that.

“My lord, you have a daughter,” Ravella tells him, a smile breaking across her face. Kit knows her husband, Lord Theomar, from childhood, but now all he can think of is Edda and his newborn child. She reaches out as if to take Robb, but Kit can barely find the words to thank her for coming to get him before he is off at a near run. 

The maids are carrying out bloodied rags and a bundled up sheet when he enters the room, which is bathed in golden light from the setting sun. Edda is sitting up, the babe nursing at her breast, expression worn and tired, but she brightens upon seeing him enter. “A girl,” she says, “you got your wish.”

“I find myself luckier with each passing day,” says Kit, sitting down on the bed beside her. Robb is half-awake from his impromptu nap now, rubbing at his eyes, while Kit takes Edda’s hand in his own. Her hair is slick with sweat and her face flushed, but she has never looked more beautiful to him. “This is your sister, Robb. You are going to be a good brother to her, aren’t you?”

Robb seems more alarmed than anything else by the sight of the red, wrinkly infant, but he is appeased by his mother’s soft words and cautiously clambers over to peer at the girl. “She’s red all over,” he says, referring to her hair, which by the looks of it is as coppery as his own. Edda chuckles at that, pressing a kiss to the babe’s downy head. 

“She was much easier than him,” she says dryly, nodding to Robb. “But the midwife said most second children are.”

“Good, then it should only be easier from here on out,” Kit jests, and she just shakes her head, leaning back against the pillow. 

“I did not say it was a lovely afternoon frolic.” Still her fond gaze does not leave their child. “What should we name her? I know we had spoke of Minisa, for your mother…” she trails off uncertainly. Kit generally finds it as difficult to speak of his mother as she does hers. 

Now he looks at his daughter and says, “Let’s give her a name all her own.” Truth be told, the girl may end up looking a good deal like his mother as it is. Kit inherited her red hair and his father’s blue eyes, after all.

By the time night falls they have settled on Sansa, which reminds him of both Minisa and Lysa, and seems to suit her, this delicate baby girl. Like her brother, she seems a remarkably sweet-tempered child, and Robb warms to her quickly, even being coaxed to hold her briefly before the end of the night. Kit hopes they will be as close as he and Lysa once were. He wants his children to consider one another friends, and not simply kin.

Edda recovers quickly from the birth, and is back on her feet a fortnight later, writing to her brother about the news. The last letter they received from Winterfell was three months ago. Benjen has settled into his role as Warden of the North, and he writes that Dacey suspects she may be pregnant with their second child. Their first, Jocelyn, was born nearly two years ago, a strong-minded little girl with Dacey’s hazel eyes. Kit hopes for their sake it is a son this time, but knowing Dacey, he thinks if anyone could weather criticism about a girl inheriting Winterfell some day, it would be her. 

He and Edda have yet to travel any great distance from Riverrun, which he prefers. After the turmoil of the Rebellion, he half hopes to never have to leave home again. But he knows Edda must miss the North, and when Sansa is old enough to travel, perhaps they could make the journey. They certainly have no fear of the summer ending anytime soon. The Citadel proclaims it will be a long one, perhaps as much as six years.

He has written Lysa, who is currently in King’s Landing with Lord Arryn and their first child, a daughter of two, Alys, but her responses to his letters are short and perfunctory, and he knows Edda would just as soon never see the capitol. He certainly has no desire to bring his wife through the throne room where her father and brother were murdered, even if Robert now sits the throne. Fortunately they were able to claim Edda’s pregnancy with Sansa as their excuse for not attending the tourney held in honor of the little prince, born eleven months ago. Joffrey is his name, something entirely Lannister and very much fitting the queen, who the rumors say holds little love for the king, nor he her. 

Kit had genuinely wished Robert the best in his marriage, but anyone could have seen that past the grand wedding the match was spectacularly ill-suited. Few women would tolerate a husband still in the depths of mourning a lost lady love like Lyanna Stark, and Cersei Lannister is notoriously unforgiving as it is, much like her lord father. Kit wants his family nowhere near a man like Tywin Lannister, not after what was done to Elia and her children.

Two months after Sansa’s birth they hold a small feast to celebrate their second child. Kit knows he will worry until she is out of the infant stage, just as he did with Robb. A sudden fever or chill can take a child that young in a matter of hours, and the Stranger snatches babes from peasants and lords alike. But for now Sansa is a healthy, happy child, the apple of her brother and uncle’s eye, and possessing a smile that brings sunlight into the darkest corners. So he has to choose to hope that it will remain that way. After all, they say summer children grow hardy and strong, nurtured by long sunny days and warm, peaceful nights.

Kit sits beside his wife at the high table, watching as she coaxes Robb into eating his vegetables while chatting amiably with Lady Swann and Lady Blackwood. He is glad Edda has found friends among his bannermen’s wives here. He knows she grew up in a household bereft of women, aside from her sister and herself, with no mother, no living aunts or uncles, and no septa. He would never seek to cloister Edda away in some tower room, but he knows there are things she cannot discuss with him the way she would other women.

Even Father seems to be in high spirits, laughing and drinking with old friends as if he is a young man again himself, despite the new lines in his face and the encroaching white in his hair. And Edmure, home for a visit from his fostering at Pinkmaiden, is lounging about with the other green boys, flirting with serving girls and japing with each other. Now that Ed is thirteen he is less the eager to please little boy that Kit remember fondly and more of a cocky annoyance convinced he is the most handsome thing to sprout hair along the river, but Kit knows he was likely much the same at that age.

And for all of that, it is Edmure who notices that Alayne is missing when it comes time to send the children off to bed. Kit is concerned but not altogether alarmed; he has never feared for his children’s safety inside the walls of Riverrun, but for all of her cleverness Alayne is still only four, and she could have easily taken a tumble down a flight of stairs or wandered down into the dungeons. “I’ll have a look for her,” he tells Edda, who frowns as she picks up a cranky Robb, rubbing his back as he complains that he isn’t tired.

He checks the corridors outside the Great Hall, and the courtyard, but Alayne is nowhere to be seen. Growing a bit more alarmed, he quickly walks up the two flights of stairs to the nursery, and paces down the hall, calling her name. To his relief, after a moment he hears quiet crying. Kit pushes open the half-ajar door to the nursery, and finds that Alayne has put herself to bed, or down for a good cry, more like it, huddled up on her small cot. Her headboard is carved with leaping fish among curling wooden waves. “What’s wrong, sweetling?” Kit questions, crouching down beside her and stroking her hair. “Is it your stomach?”

“N-no,” Alayne refuses to roll over to face him. “Go away.”

“I’m your father, I’m not going to go away,” Kit says mildly, and then pulls her up and into his lap. In a few short years she will be too big for such things, more interested in making flower crowns from the gardens and teasing Robb the way Lysa always playfully jested with Edmure. He misses his sister, or the happy little girl he remembers, all the more then, and his hold on Alayne tightens slightly. He won’t see her sent away like her mother.

“I’m n-not your real daughter,” Alayne stammers tearfully, and he freezes in shock. No. Even if there were rumors- she couldn’t know, could she? Who would have told her? Before he can say anything, she continues, sobbing, “Now you have a little lady an-and you don’t n-need me anymore!” He relaxes minutely, grateful she is too young to realize. She doesn’t know; it’s just a child’s theatrics. 

“Alayne,” he says patiently. “You may not be a lady, but you are still my daughter, and I love you very much.” Kit hesitates, feeling a small wave of guilt. “I… I know I haven’t had as much time for you since Sansa was born, but that is always how it is with a new baby. I still love you just as much.”

“I don’t w-want anymore babies!” Alayne cries, pressing her head into his chest and sniffling.

He pats her comfortingly. “Well, there won’t be another anytime soon. I’m sorry, Laya. I know it is hard when things change. But Sansa is your sister, and she’ll need you when she gets bigger.”

The crying slows somewhat. “H-how?” Alayne hiccups.

“Well,” says Kit, “little sisters need big sisters to tell them what to do, don’t they?” He pokes at her side, and she gives a shaky laugh. “When she’s a little older, she’ll be able to play with you and Robb. And there’ll be two girls and only one boy. Won’t you like that?”

She gives a small nod, wiping at her red, wet face.

“There,” says Kit. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, is there?”

Alayne looks up at him with a child’s trusting gaze, and then pouts, “But I want to be a lady, too. Ed says ladies get to marry knights like him. I want to marry Ed.”

Kit chuckles. “You do, do you? I’m afraid you can’t marry Ed, sweetling. But mayhaps one day you will marry a knight like him. Would you like that?”

They talk a little more of knights and ladies before she begins to nod off in his arms, and he stays there longer than he should, unwilling to put her to bed and end this moment, right here, listening to the river and the summer night’s breeze rustle through the trees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, we're skipping along at a more rapid pace now, mostly because I enjoy writing the Stark/Tully kids as a bit older. Also, in this AU we have daughters all around ie. Jocelyn Stark and Alys Arryn. (Alys being an anagram for Lysa is at least 50% of why I chose it).


	11. Eddara VI

289 AC - RIVERRUN

Edda does not think they have fought like this in years. As a couple she and Kit are not inclined to argue or bicker; they generally agree when it comes to affairs of the household and children. Neither are inclined to snap at the other, and while Kit can hold a grudge and Edda can brood, she would be hard pressed to name a fight that did not end swiftly. 

The closest she can think of would be when Robb was sick with a fever for a few days in his third year and they were both half mad with worry. It was just before she had found out she was pregnant with Sansa, and they both said things they quickly came to regret. But that was different. Their child’s life was in danger. They were terrified, as any parents would be. Robb was their entire world. To lose him would have been to lose everything they had worked so hard to build after the war.

And now war has come again, threatening her peaceful existence and her happy home, the happiest home Edda has ever known, and she cannot let go of her anger towards Kit, nor he her. It has been two days. Ordinarily they would have relented and forgave each other by now. But that is far from the case this time, and it has been two cold, tense days at Riverrun. These two days are the longest they have ever gone without sharing a bed since the Rebellion ended, and now it is about to be much longer, when he leaves in a week’s time.

“I can’t see why you insist on holding this over my head,” Kit finally says sharply, as they dress for dinner. She knew leaving the door between their adjoined rooms open was a mistake. In fact, she has half a mind to march over and slam it in his face. A week ago the thought of that would have made her laugh, to envision herself so upset with him. Kit, who she has almost only ever had smiles for. Now she bristles as she laces up her stays, somewhat haphazardly; she sent away her maids so as not to hear them fight, but they are probably listening in the hall.

“Insist on- it is hardly something that can be wished away!” she snaps back, without turning to face him, glowering at her clouded reflection in the mirror. “If you could put yourself in my place, perhaps you wouldn’t be so confused on the matter, my lord-,” the last two words are uttered with a fantastic amount of venom, when she usually addresses him as such in public, out of respect.

“What makes you think I want it go away?” Kit demands, having come to the threshold to glare at her. She can feel his gaze on the back of her neck. “You are to have another child! We should be celebrating, not sniping at each other like this. Don’t be ridiculous, Edda-,”

That does it. She whirls on him, blazing with outrage. “Ridiculous? The only one being ridiculous here is you, expecting me to weep tears of joy for a child that may never know their father!”

Is he being willfully obtuse? Can he not see why she might not be overjoyed at the prospect of enduring another pregnancy without him? Is her only purpose to sit by a window and wait for menfolk to return to her? It certainly seems it, from the path her life has led. There was to be no more war. Well, that was a splendid lie. She is infuriated with Robert. Could he not have foreseen this? What about Jon Arryn? Where was his wisdom when it came to dealing with the Greyjoys? It has only been five years since Robert took the throne, and now there is another uprising. 

Every man, woman, and child in the Riverlands is well aware of how tempting a target Seagard is. If the Ironborn take it, they will spill into the Riverlands like thousands of grey bilge rats, pillaging and raping as they go. The Lannister fleet has been decimated, so there will be little help from the westermen. And her husband may yet die in battle. He was extraordinarily lucky to never take a serious injury during the Rebellion. Ben’s old leg injury from the Tower of Joy has deteriorated to the point where he now walks with a limp, and uses a cane in private, and he is only twenty one. 

She will not be a widowed mother of three at twenty six. Robb is still so young. Sansa will forget Kit. And this child… 

Kit has sobered slightly, seeing the naked fear and pain on her face now that they are looking at one another. They have always been to able to read one another so well. “You can’t think like that,” he says, in a much gentler tone. “We have much to look forward to. The children will be excited, and you will have your ladies for comfort-,”

“I want my husband for comfort, the one who swore vows to me in his sept, before his gods,” she cuts him off, voice cracking. “I want the father of my children here. With me. Where he belongs.”

“I am a knight of the realm,” Kit runs a hand through his hair, which he allowed to grow out again as of late. She still thinks it makes him look a bit boyish, but she knows he will cut it before he goes. She will miss the feel of it under her fingers in bed, the way it fell across his eyes the last time they- “I swore vows to the king as well. I must go to Seagard, and then where Robert orders his army. If the Greyjoys are not put down quickly, it will be chaos up and down the coastlines.”

“I know,” says Edda, blinking hard. She will not break down and cry in front of him. She is not a timid newlywed. She is a mother twice, in nine months time thrice, over. “I know you must go. I would never seek to keep you here. It is your duty to go. But with you gone, and Edmure gone, and-,” she cuts herself off, shaking her head. “It will just- I had not thought it would be like this. Not again. I want to be happy for the babe’s sake. But it is just hard. To think of a son or daughter coming into this world with only a mother.”

“Gods willing, I will be at your side then, and all the days after,” Kit approaches and takes her hands in his, rubbing comforting circles on her knuckles. “But I will not give you false promises. I do not know what will happen. But we have had five good years here, have we not? We have been happy together. You have made me happier than I ever thought possible, Edda. My lady,” he cups her face with one hand, and Edda leans into it, closing her eyes briefly. “I love you,” Kit says, and when she opens her eyes she smiles in spite of herself.

“I love you too.”

There is a palpable aura of relief at supper, when it is evident that Ser Kit and Lady Eddara are no longer staring daggers at each other in between bites of their food. 

Edmure says as much; “I’m glad you’ll be seeing Kit off with a kiss and not a slap,” he japes, sixteen but eyes brimming with childish mischief when he glances between them, ignoring the stern look Hoster gives him. “It warms my heart, good-sister.”

Sometimes Ed reminds her so much of her brother that she almost calls him Ben. This is one of those times. Instead Edda bites her tongue, rolls her eyes at him, and tells Robb to stop playing with his stew. He is six now, and seemed to go from a babe to an energetic boy overnight. He guiltily retracts his spoonful of stew from Sansa’s plate, where he had been debating dumping it.

Sansa, only three but ever the little lady, is taking delicate sips of her cider. Edda does not know where her disposition comes from, but it is obvious that her daughter will be a far more beautiful, courtly lady than herself someday. All Sansa cares for are tales of knights and princesses and true love, and Kit is never sorry to indulge her.

Alayne is picking sullenly at her food a few spaces down. Edda thinks that she is likely mature enough that it has sunk in for her in a way it has yet to for Robb; she knows Kit will be gone for months, that she may never see her father again. Kit spoke to her privately about it yesterday, and Edda would never interfere in his parenting of the girl, but she feels for her all the same. She may not love Alayne as she does her own children, and they will never be close, she thinks, but she does care for the child, and takes no pleasure from seeing her like this.

“Alayne,” Kit says now, and she looks up quickly, the morose look on her face fading somewhat. Alayne does not always eat with them, especially not when they have guests, but this will be one of their last meals all together as a family. “I have an important job for you while your uncle and I are away.”

Edmure does not know, and looks suitably confused. Edda fights back a sigh, and tries to think of the happy moments, as Kit said earlier. She does want this child. They will be loved, no matter what. 

“What is it, Father?” Alayne asks eagerly, nudging Robb, who freezes mid chew. Even Sansa looks up inquisitively.

“You will have to take very good care of your brother and sister while I am gone, because Lady Edda will be tired. Carrying a babe is hard work, you see.” He reaches over and squeezes Edda’s hand, and after a moment she squeezes back, glancing worriedly to Alayne.

But it is not as it was with Sansa’s birth; now Alayne brightens and smiles, leaning forward in her seat. “I hope it’s another girl,” she says quickly; for she does love Sansa so, always holding her hand and playing with her, putting flowers in Sansa’s ruddy curls and making Robb be the king to her queen, and Sansa the little princess. 

“Congratulations,” says Edmure, snorting in amusement as Robb groans, “Alayne’s not in charge of me, is she, Father? You said I was supposed to protect Riverrun with Grandfather while you were gone-”

“When will we get the baby?” Sansa asks, looking around, baffled. “Is it coming soon? I want to name it Princess.”

“You can’t name a baby Princess,” Robb scoffs, and Sansa flushes pink. “Yes I can!”

In the end they settle on Axel for a boy and Arya for a girl, before he leaves. Now that she has a son and a daughter, Edda does not have much of a preference one way or another. Sometimes she thinks about a little boy with Brandon’s wild grin and grey eyes, but she has no reason to believe her third child will not have the same red hair and blue eyes as Robb and Sansa.

Muriel Blackwood says that she is certain to have a girl, for she is carrying high, whereas Hester Bracken predicts a boy, because Edda craves salty foods for a month. Ermaulde Vance argues that her frequent bouts of morning sickness mark the babe a girl. And Althea Vyren is insistent that her daily headaches during the eighth month ensure she will have a son.

Edda is more inclined to believe that her headaches are due to the constant flurrying of sympathetic ladies around her, and Robb and Alayne’s constant bickering. She knows it is likely because they both miss their father, and are not sure how to show it, but that doesn’t make it any easier to get a moment’s peace when Robb is complaining about Alayne calling him a toad and Alayne is complaining about Robb pushing her into a stream. 

At least Sansa is no trouble at all; she is nearly always at Edda’s side throughout the pregnancy, as if enchanted by the events unfolding, the way her mother’s stomach swells as the babe grows. She likes to talk to the unborn child as well, to Edda’s amusement, rambling on about how she is going to have a little sister because Layna said so. Sansa takes every word out of her half-sister’s mouth as the complete and utter truth.

Son or daughter, Edda is torn between wanting the baby out so she can be done with this pregnancy, which has taken more of a toll on her than her past two, and not wanting the birth to come, because Kit will not be there. Some of her fears are abated when the Rivermen triumph at Seagard; Kit writes of great bronze bell tolling to usher in the smallfolk through the castle gates at the Ironborn fleet approached, and how his old friend Jason Mallister slew Rodrik Greyjoy, Balon’s dreaded heir, turning the tide of the battle in a matter of minutes. The Ironborn lost faith upon seeing Rodrik’s corpse, and were ultimately pushed back into the sea. She is six months pregnant when the royal fleet battles Victarion Greyjoy in the Straits of Fair Isle, and at the start of her ninth month all she knows is the Iron Isles are being invaded.

Dacey writes from Winterfell of a third daughter, Berena, also born while her father was away, to join her sisters, Jocelyn, now four, and Lyarra, only two. Edda is reading the letter, dated two months past, when her waters break. Three weeks early, she is out for a walk in the gardens with Robb and Alayne, and the wave of pain sends her staggering, grabbing Robb’s arm. He recoils in fright as his mother drops to a near hunch on the ground. “What’s wrong? Mother!” He tries to tug her back up to her feet, but Alayne pulls him away.

“It’s the baby,” she snaps, suddenly sounding years older than seven. “Go get Maester Luwin and the ladies, you run faster than me.” When Robb stares at her in shock, she shoves him. “Go on!”

He pales and sprints off, running as only a boy of six can, feet barely touching the ground. Alayne kneels down beside Edda and somewhat cautiously rubs circles on her back as she fights to control her breathing. She never had this much pain with the other two, and things seem to be progressing much, much quicker. She at least had some warning before her water broke with Sansa. It is a rainy day, a storm threatening on the horizon, and the ground is slick and wet underneath her.

“Can you stand?” Alayne asks, and then ducks under Edda’s arm, bracing against her as she helps her up. Edda leans on her heavily, sucking in shallow breaths, until Maester Luwin comes hurrying over with two servants to help her into the nearest bedchamber. She is not going to make it up a flight of stairs at this point. Alayne follows, face drawn and anxious, until she is taken away by a maid, who tells her that she will not want to see what happens next.

Edda would have to agree. What happens next is that this babe wants out, now, and it is arguably the most painful, but the quickest, of her three labors. Luwin urges her to stop pushing when the child’s head is out, for the cord is wrapped around their neck, and she grits her teeth and almost screams until he tells her she can push again. Then they are born in a flood of bloody liquid, and she sags back against the pillows, panting.

“A girl, my lady,” says Luwin, after the midwife has wiped off the babe. “A little fighter, this one. She did not want to wait a day more.”

To Edda’s shock, the girl’s hair is dark, not auburn. She is much smaller than Robb or Sansa was, and truthfully not a pretty babe, but few are, and she feels that is fair, after the stress this one just put her through. “You,” she tells her daughter, “are certainly an Arya, my lady.” A wolf with scales, she thinks, and almost laughs hysterically at that.

Robb and Sansa are brought in to see her a few hours later, after she has had some time to recover. Edda asks for Alayne as well, something she has never done before. Alayne looks just as shocked to be brought into the room, standing hesitantly behind her siblings. “You were a brave, strong girl, to stay with me like that when my waters broke,” Edda tells her seriously. “Now come and hold your sister with Robb.”

Alayne breaks into a shy smile that widens into a grin.

“It is a princess,” says Sansa triumphantly, petting Arya’s head. “See?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always had a minor headcanon that Arya, ever the impatient one, was born early. And that she would be not-so-thrilled at all little Sansa's talk of a princess for a sister. (Yes, Dacey and Ben have a whole slew of daughters, and Winterfell is very proud of their she-wolves).


	12. Kermit VI

293 AC - WINTERFELL

Kit has never been this far north before. In childhood, the furthest he’d ever journeyed was to the Twins, and as a man he fought in the south and in the west during the rebellions. He has seen far more of Westeros than he ever thought he would; many men die in the same house they were born in, having never traveled the world. But he has never truly seen anything as wild and untamed as the mountain crags and rugged highlands and grey fields of the North. 

Here one could go weeks without seeing any signs of civilization. Here the forests seem that much darker and deeper, and the roads are barely that, more like a constant struggle to exert any man-made influence over nature. And by the Seven, it is cold. Much colder than he had anticipated for the flush of summer, even with all of Edda’s warnings about summer snows. They are a week north of the Neck when the children see snow drift down from the blustery sky for the first time, and Kit gapes alongside them, having almost forgotten what it felt like to feel cold flakes dust his face. He has not seen weather like this in thirteen years.

But Edda declares the weather mild indeed, and now all her teasing about thin-skinned, delicate southerners seems to ring true, for Kit is baffled as to how anyone could live like this. In the rest of the realm, it may be summer, but here… if this is what passes for fair weather, what is the dead of winter like? He prays he never finds out. But aside from the biting chill in the air and the hard travel, he is enjoying this journey north. Edda has not seen her brother in nearly a decade, and it will be good for the children to meet their cousins. He never had much of an extended family as a boy, aside from House Whent, and even then they felt like more distant relations.

And it is the happiest he has seen his wife since Bran was born. She comes alive in the North in a way she does not at Riverrun, and seems almost girlish in her excitement to show the children her homeland, to tell them about her childhood and the old ways. He knows it has been hard for her. She can bring them to pray in the godswood with her at home, but it is not the same, and the influence of the Seven will always be stronger, being their father’s religion, and the religion of nearly everyone they know. To many, Edda’s faith in the old gods is a mere curiosity, a relic of an ancient era, not something to be taken seriously.

He does miss Alayne, however. Taking her with them was out of the question. He has strained age-old decorum and etiquette in regards to her upbringing again and again, but one does not take their bastard child with them to visit their lady wife’s family. It would be the height of disrespect. He knows Alayne understands that; she said as much when he spoke to her of it. Sometimes he forgets she is just eleven. She carries herself like a woman flowered already, as much as he wants her to remain his little girl. It will never be easy for her. He just wants to shelter her from the world’s scrutiny for a little while longer.

But he thinks this trip will be good for Sansa and Arya in particular. Without Alayne as a moderating buffer between them, it will force them to learn to get along. It is not that there is any real intense rivalry between the two; they are simply so different. Sansa loves to sing and dance and write poetry. Arya loves to swim and run and make mud pies in the dirt. Kit can deny neither of them anything, he loves them so, but Edda loves their frequent arguing far less. “You are not the one to whom they come pointing fingers at each other,” she tells him, often. “Either I am favoring Arya because she has my look, or favoring Sansa because she is older. It never ends.”

But now he watches as Sansa, usually so refined, develops an altogether mischievous look and scoops up a bit of snow, tossing it at Arya, who is looking the other way. It splatters against her dark hair, and Arya whirls around. She may only be four, but she is remarkably scrappy for her age, and she lights up, heaving some snow back at her sister, and charging at her head-long. “I’ll get you!”

“No- you- won’t!” Sansa dodges her breathlessly, cloak trailing on the ground, and then tries to hide behind Robb, who is all of ten and looks exasperated at first, before he smirks and pushes Sansa in front of him to face Arya’s delighted wrath. “Get her, Arya! Rub snow in her face!”

“Robb, you- you dog!” Sansa squeals in dismay, clinging to him as he snickers, and Arya spins in a circle, flinging snow and cackling. 

Bran looks on shyly, holding Edda’s hand, still the coddled baby of the family, until she lets go of him and urges him in their direction. Then he goes running after Arya, tripping over his small feet, and Robb relents and takes Sansa’s side as they go to war, older two against younger two. Arya and Bran, lose, of course, and as punishment are forced to eat snow, which they seem to enjoy. Sansa, flushed bright red with excitement, tells Arya to pretend it tastes like lemoncakes, and then falls to pieces with giggles when Arya pulls a face and sticks out her tongue.

A few minutes later they are all off running again, shouting and jumping on each other. Kit puts his arm around Edda, who leans into him comfortably as they watch Robb set Bran on his shoulders and pretend to be a monster, chasing Sansa and Arya. Arya snatches up a stick and waves it at him threateningly; “I’ll save you, Sansa!”

“Kill the beast,” Sansa cries, hopping on top of a tree stump to issue commands. “He’s coming to eat us!”

“They haven’t all played together like this in months,” Edda says to him, and he nods, fighting back a strange sensation of loss. When they return to the Riverlands, months from now, they will stop at Seagard, where Robb will begin his fostering as a page for House Mallister, and hopefully within several years, a squire for Jason. In truth, he should have gone a few years ago, but he was their first, and Kit could not bear to take Edda’s son away from her. He still seemed so young at seven and eight. But he is older now, and it will be good for him to be away from home, as much as he will be missed.

“They’ll remember it when they are our age,” he says. “And far too big to throw snow and sticks at each other.”

“Careful,” Edda smiles. “I could still beat you in a snow fight, my lord.”

“Leave me some dignity, my lady,” he scoffs, but kisses her eagerly, while none of their children are watching.

They make good time, despite the occasional snow shower, and reach Winterfell on a slightly warmer morning, when the grass has recovered and the ground is green once more. Kit is slightly in awe of the sheer size of the castle; it is at least twice the size of Riverrun, if not more, and as they ride through the gates he sees the way Edda straightens in the saddle, holds her head up high and proud as they pass under Stark banners fluttering in the wind. 

Nearly all of House Stark and its household is assembled outside to greet them. Kit immediately recognizes Benjen and Dacey, standing on either side of their line of daughters, Dacey with a babe in arms; it must be the child Edrick. Their last letter announced the birth of a son, their fourth child. He can imagine the relief. The three girls are all tall and lean, just like their parents. 

The oldest, Jocelyn, and youngest, Berena, take after Dacey more in appearance; their hair is a lighter shade of brown and their faces lack the long Stark look, having a more ovaline shape like their mother’s. The middle girl, Lyarra, looks a good deal like Ben and Edda; her hair is slightly darker, her face is longer, and her features are sharper. Truly, she and Arya could be sisters. 

Ben steps forward to greet his sister as Edda quickly dismounts from her horse, embracing him. “It’s been too long,” he says, to both her and Kit, who kisses Dacey on the cheek. She responds with a rib-crushing one-armed embrace, rocking the infant in her other arm. “Come greet your aunt and uncle, girls,” she says, and the sisters Stark come forward.

“Welcome to Winterfell, Lord Uncle, Lady Aunt,” says Jocelyn confidently; she can be no older than eight, but she carries herself well, making eye contact with both of them and smiling at her cousins. Lyarra sends them a slightly skeptical, judgmental stare in proper six year old fashion. Little Berena is a bit shyer, murmuring her hellos and staring at the ground, standing slightly behind her elder sister. 

Only after the initial introductions does Kit take notice of the two boys lingering nearby. One must be Jon Snow; he has the Stark look through and through, although his hair is darker than Benjen or Edda’s, closer to the shade Kit remembers of Brandon and Lyanna. The older one, a lanky boy of perhaps fifteen or sixteen, must be the Greyjoy ward. Kit is only glad that House Stark took him on as a hostage, and not House Tully. Theon Greyjoy meets his gaze sullenly for a moment, and then looks away, obviously uncomfortable around the guests.

When all is said and done, and the children have been sent off to the godswood to get to know one another, Kit is taken on a tour of the castle. “This was my old bedroom,” Edda says, pausing outside one door, and peering inside. Ben exchanges an amused look with his wife, who has just returned from putting Edrick down for a nap in the nursery. “Jocelyn has it now,” Ben says. “And Berena and Lyarra are in Lyanna’s. They prefer to share.” 

There is a momentary pause, and then their tour continues. Kit marvels at the warmth of the walls, the glass gardens, the ancient towers, and library. He is not envious; Riverrun will always be his home, but he has more of a sense now of what his wife has been missing, all these years. To see her in this setting now seems strange, but she has ever been a Stark, for all that his bannermen address her as Lady Tully. 

After lunch Kit accompanies Edda to the crypts. Riverrun has none; when his mother died they sent her pyre floating down the river. He remembers running after it, through the reeds and mud, smelling the smoke in the air. Lysa had trailed after him, weeping and calling his name. Eventually he had turned back to comfort his sister, and that was the last he had seen of Minisa Whent Tully. He can still smell the smoke now, hear the river and the people singing mourning hymns on the banks as they watched her pass.

The crypts are silent, aside from the occasional drip of water. He follows Edda down into the depths, helps her light the torches, and then stares at the stone Stark kings, who grimly regard them from their respective alcoves. He thinks he sees something skitter in the darkness, a mouse or rat, but Edda ignores it, moving forward. She stops in front of the statue of Lord Rickard, who sternly gazes ahead, and Edda looks up at him with such confused longing that Kit’s breath catches in his throat. 

Then she turns to her brother. Brandon’s figure keeps both hands on his sword, has the hint of a fierce smile on his bearded face. Edda leans up on her tiptoes to brush her fingers along his marble hands, and then backs away. They come to Lyanna, and Kit cannot look at her without seeing the girl in the birthing bed, delirious and bleeding. He feels sick. Edda bows her head for a moment, and then says in a very quiet voice, “I’d like a little while alone with her, Kit.”

“Of course,” he says, and wishing he could say more, turns and ascends back up out of the crypts. 

Jon Snow is waiting outside. Kit stares at the boy for a moment, who stares at him, and thinks of his last real memory of him, as a squalling infant in Ben’s arms. Of course, Jon knows none of that. Kit says instead, “How is everyone getting along?”

Jon looks a bit surprised to have not been ignored outright; he is the same age as Robb, but he seems older in the same way that Alayne does. He speaks quietly but concisely for his age. “They’re playing Come Into My Castle at the hot springs. Jocelyn won’t let Robb win.”

Kit smiles slightly at that. “Good. He could do with a little competition. It will be good preparation for his fostering.” He hesitates at that, regarding the boy closely. “Are you to be a ward anywhere?”

Jon bites his lip, and then nods. “I’m going to Bear Island in two months. Father- my lord father,” he corrects himself, “says it will be good for me.”

“I’m sure it will,” says Kit gently. He glances back to the shadowed flight of stairs leading down to the crypts. “Lady Eddara is paying her respects to the dead. I think… I think she would be happy to have you join her.”

Jon frowns at him. “Are- do you think?” He sounds nervous suddenly, shifting from one leg to the other. “She is my aunt, but…”

“I know she would,” says Kit, gaze not leaving the boy’s long face, and after a moment Jon Snow inclines his head of dark hair and then slowly descends into the crypts, disappearing into the shadows. 

By dinner that night, Jon has not left Edda’s side, a painfully earnest look on his face as he tells her all about his training and the book he is reading and the games he is best at, while she listens patiently and when Jon is not looking mouths ‘thank you’ to Kit, who simply raises an eyebrow and turns back to Jocelyn, who is engaged in lively chatter with Robb and Sansa about the new litter of puppies born in the kennel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We don't see as much of the Starks this chapter because the focus is moreso on Edda and Kit and their children, but I think it's safe to say the cousins enjoy a good relationship. Will Jon still end up at the Wall? At some point, probably, since the fate of the world depends on it. But I get a kick out of picturing him on Bear Island dealing with Mormont women. Finally, we're now towards the very end of this fic, with two chapters left. They will NOT be from the perspectives of Edda and Kit, so open the betting pool for who is taking the lead at the end here.


	13. Alayne I

296 AC - RIVERRUN

Alayne doesn’t make a habit out of eavesdropping, but she is hardly opposed when the situation calls for it. And this certainly does. She has it on good authority from Connel, the boy who tends to the ravens, that her lord father received a letter this morning. And it wasn’t from Winterfell, because all their ravens are bigger and tougher, nor from Seagard, for Robb always sends the same raven with a bald patch on one wing. 

Therefore, she feels hopeful that it may be a letter from someone else entirely. Another river lord, perhaps, seeking to tie his house to his liege lord’s. Through a marriage, perhaps. Alayne knows she is never the first girl people think of when seeking a Tully wife for their sons. But she still has value as a match. Her father’s affection for her is well-known. It would be unwise to discount the influence she could wield on him. She has a lady’s education, after all, and although Rivers mars her name, she is still of Tully blood. 

The first offer for her hand came when she was but twelve, before she had even flowered. Some hedge knight who had heard tell of Kit Tully’s bastard girl, a pretty little blue-eyed creature. Her father had turned the knight down immediately, of course. Aside from the fact that the man was old enough to be her father, and her so young, she could surely do better than a hedge knight. 

She has always held her father’s name in her heart like an ember. That gives her power. It may not be fair, but it does. She has what she has because of who he is. She is a Rivers who stems from the Tully line, and family comes before everything for a man like her father. And for years she has let that ember warm him when she feels cold and alone, when highborn girls whisper and giggle at her, when lordlings make thinly veiled suggestions that she come warm their beds.

True, she has been spared much because of her father’s protection. No one would dare publicly insult her, at least not within the walls of Riverrun. But she has seen and heard enough to know just how bad it could be. They say bastard girls, no matter who their fathers are, are all the same- lusty and spiteful, greedy whores and bitches, clawing for the same silken gowns and fair knights as their trueborn sisters. 

A Rivers will let anyone swim in her, the common jape goes. As if simply by existing she were offering herself up to any passing man to leer at and grope. As if her birth had somehow sullied her from conception onward, forever tainted, forever marked as less worthy, less desirable, easy prey. Father has always loved her. Lady Eddara has always been kind. Her siblings have never treated her any differently. But the fact remains that she is different, and always will be.

A good marriage could change that. She could leave Rivers behind her, take on a new name, even a new house, become someone else entirely at the altar. She is no fool; she does not entertain childish fantasies of becoming some high lady, admired by all. But she could be someone else, someone respected, surely. Someone with a husband who counted her as loyal and modest and worthy of his affection, not just his lust. With trueborn children of her own. Legitimate. Not some airheaded lord’s bastard, to further drag her into the mud and muck. 

She could run her own household. She knows she’d be good at it. She has a fine head for numbers and she gets on well with all the servants here and everyone who knows her- the real her- likes her. She could have her own keep or holdfast and a man in her bed who called her ‘wife’ not ‘whore’ and children with Tully blue eyes and that would be enough, she thinks. That is all she dares to dream of, and some would still mark her overly ambitious for it.

But surely it is no sin to simply want more, when she was born with less?

So now she sidles up outside the door of her father’s solar to eavesdrop on him and her stepmother. Silent as a mouse, she strains to hear the muffled conversation. To her surprise, he sounds angry, angrier than she has heard him in some time. Father has never had a temper like Lord Hoster or even Uncle Ed. He is as even-keeled as the finest fishing boat. But now something has provoked his ire.

“All these years-,” she can barely make out, “and he thinks to- nonsense, this is- I won’t have him- yes, I intend to reply to it, Edda- tell him exactly- he may spread all the rumors he likes, I will not-,” and then there is a sudden silence, and Alayne scurries back as the door swings open, revealing Lady Eddara, who stares at her with an expression torn between surprise and grimness.

“Alayne,” she says, casting a look back at Father.

“Father, I’m sorry,” Alayne begins quickly, heat flooding her face. How could she be so stupid? She doesn’t even know what the letter was about, and now she’s been caught. She should have found some other way of discovering the contents- sneaking in later tonight, perhaps. Sometimes they forget to lock up the room after dark. 

But Father is not willing to hear her excuses right now. “Have I no privacy in my own house?” he snaps, and Alayne flinches. “You are far too old to be skulking about listening to conversations that-,” he cuts himself off, shaking his head. “Go to your room.”

“But Father-,”

“Now,” he says tersely, in a tone that leaves no room for persuasion, and Lady Eddara gives her a slightly more sympathetic look, but says nothing. 

Alayne bobs her head, and quickly walks away, mentally berating herself. The letter likely wasn’t even about her but some other business entirely. And now Father has reason to mistrust her. That could be dangerous. She knows his love has never been conditional on her good behavior, the way it would be with many lords, but she still wants to please him, to make him proud of her. She’s always been so eager to prove herself to him, to show that she was clever and strong and capable, just as worthy of his affection as his other children. To think of him hardening towards her or beginning to suspect her terrifies Alayne. 

A lump forms in her throat, but she refuses to let her eyes begin to water. She cannot remember the last time she cried. She has not the time nor luxury for weepiness. There is no handsome prince waiting around the corner to wipe her tears away and reassure her that everything will be alright. When it comes down to it, the only person she can truly rely on is herself. She climbs a flight of stairs and walks down the hall to her bedchamber, exhaling through her nose. It will be alright. She will show Father that she is truly sorry and he will forgive her. 

She sits on her bed like a penitent child, then after a few minutes groans and rolls over onto her back, curling her short legs up underneath her. She has always been short, and has given up most of her hope of ever growing any taller than she is, which is barely past five feet. Lady Eddara towers over her, and Sansa is quickly gaining on her, having inherited both her parents’ height. Arya is small like her, but she is still only seven. 

Alayne used to dream of waking up one day to find that she was legitimate child after all, that her hair had turned into shining copper overnight. But that was a little girl’s fantasy. She is almost a woman grown now. In two short years she will be sixteen and of age. And if she is not betrothed by then she fears she will never be able to wed at all. She will be marked a spinster and live out the rest of her life here, known as just another bastard girl until her dying days. She knows she is being selfish. Is that really so terrible a fate? 

But eventually, it would just be her and Father and Lady Eddara and Robb and his wife, whoever that might be. Sansa and Arya and Bran and Rickon- they would all be wed and ushered into new lives of their own. She would just be a forgotten childhood memory. Poor, lonely Alayne, who never did ride out of the keep for her wedding day. Yes, there are worse ways to live one’s life. But she cannot simply resign herself to the shadows. 

There is a quiet knock on her door, and she bolts upright, smoothing out her dark green dress swiftly. She doesn’t want Father to see her sulking like this. But it is not him who cautiously pushes open the door, but Sansa. “May I come in?” she asks, eyes widened in concern as she takes in Alayne’s far more flustered than usual state. “I was looking for you- Jayne and Lysa and I were going to take our needlework and sit out by the waterwheel.”

Jayne and Lysa, the latter named for their aunt, are two of the Bracken daughters, close friends of Sansa, along with Nell Mooton, the Vance sisters, and Carellen Smallwood. Sansa has so many friends it is difficult to keep track of them all, flitting around Riverrun, vying for Father and Lady Eddara’s favor, for all their fathers would see them wed to Robb one day. They are varying degrees of polite to Alayne in turn, although Barbara Bracken once said Alayne behaved above her station and needed to be taught her place. Sansa overhead and outraged, made Barbara, three years her elder and smarting with shame, apologize directly to Alayne’s face. 

“That sounds lovely,” says Alayne, forcing on a pleasant smile. “But I- I can’t, Father wishes to speak to me, you see, so I’ll have to come find you later.”

“Oh,” Sansa looks slightly crestfallen. “What about?” She brightens with a sudden thought, taking an eager step into the room. “Oh, Alayne, what if it is about a betrothal? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” Her voice takes on a wistful lilt. “I do hope you marry before me. I haven’t been to a wedding since I was little! And it would be so beautiful-,” as she rambles on excitedly, Alayne’s smile wavers, then cracks in half. She looks away as Sansa begins to trail off. 

It is not her fault. Sansa is only ten, not even flowered. She doesn’t mean any harm by it. But it is hard- Alayne loves her sisters, both of them, she does, but sometimes it is very hard to not feel bitter or resentful. Sansa has no concept of how lucky and fortunate she is, to be born into her life. Everyone adores her. Every lord wants her for their son. All the girls want to be her best friend. And Sansa, being ten and naive, thinks it is because of her, not the circumstances of her birth. She assumes that they all love her, simply because they can.

“I’m sorry,” suddenly Sansa is by her side, fretful and embracing her. “I didn’t mean to make you sad, Layna. What’s wrong? We can wait until Father has spoken to you, to do our sewing. You’re the best at it, everyone thinks so. You make such cunning little birds with the thread- even Septa said so, last time.” 

Septa Mordane has made it perfectly clear what she thinks of Alayne, aside from her sewing ability. She disapproves of how Sansa seems to seek Alayne’s approval, believing it should be firmly reversed. And perhaps she is right. Sansa simply sees her as her big sister now, but years from now, when she knows more of the world, that may no longer hold true. She may realize just how different they are. 

“No, it’s not that,” Alayne wraps an arm around her, restraining a sigh. “I’m sorry, I’m just in a poor mood, Sansa. But it’s my own fault. Now-,” and here she hesitates, “you should go, before Father comes in. I- I think he wants to speak to me in private.”

Sansa huffs, then pulls away. “Well, alright.” She stands up, smoothing out the skirt of her dress. “I’ll go find Arya. Septa says she’s very behind on her needlework. And she’s probably off swimming again,” she wrinkles her nose. “She’s going to wrinkle up like a prune and stay that way some day!” 

Alayne laughs a little in spite of herself. “Don’t tell her that, or she might push you into the water again like she did last week.”

Sansa reddens at the memory. “Ben Blackwood was watching! It was horrible!” She turns to go, and then pauses. “Alayne?” she turns back around, a small smile on her face. “Don’t worry. Even if I marry first, then- then you can come live with me and my husband. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Alayne feels the lump in her throat anew, but it’s a softer, sweeter lump now. “Oh- Sansa, don’t be silly,” she tries to sound casual, “I don’t think your fine husband, whoever he might be, would like that.”

“Well, I would be his lady, and he would want to make me happy, because he loved me,” Sansa declares with all the confidence of a child. “That’s how it was for Florian and Jonquil. That’s how it will be for me.” She smiles sweetly. “I’m sure of it.”

Father comes in a little while later. Alayne immediately stands up and curtsies. 

“Alayne, you know there is no need for that,” he doesn’t sound angry anymore, just tired.

“But- my lord, I’m sorry,” she bursts out. “I was disrespectful of you and your home, and- and I promise, it will not happen again.” If she is as proper as can be, he will have to forgive her, won’t he? 

But Father just looks at her as if he momentarily does not recognize her face. “Since when do you call me ‘lord’?” he asks gravely, and closes the door behind him. “Alayne. I remain your father, even when you upset me. You do not need to flatter me into forgiving you. You are my child.”

“Yes, Father,” she bows her head, hands clasped in front of her.

“I understand your… curiosity,” he sounds slightly strained. “But that letter- all my correspondences, for that matter- are my own affairs. I share them with Lady Edda because she is my wife. And one day, when you are married, your husband will take you into his confidence as I have her. But for now, you are still a child in this household.”

“Of course, Father.” 

“How much did you overhear?” He is looking at her intently, and Alayne raises her gaze to meet him. The intensity in his eyes almost frightens her.

“I- not much,” she says hastily. “Only- that you seemed angry with the man who wrote it.”

He looks at her for a moment longer, as if trying to ensure she is not lying, and then nods. “I was. It was from… an old friend, regarding a matter I thought long put to rest.” Here his tone hardens slightly. “But it should not trouble you, Alayne. It is between him and I. There is nothing to worry about.” He puts a hand on her shoulder, and she nods shakily.

“Only- Father, I was only listening because- I thought it might be about a betrothal, and now that I am flowered, I… I was just… I know I can make a good match,” she bursts out with, “Father, I can, I promise. It- it would not even have to be a Riverman. I could marry a Westerman. Even a Valeman. I know I could.”

“Alayne,” he says firmly, cutting off her babbling. She flushes all the more. She probably sounds idiotic. “I have had an offer for your hand that I have been considering for near a month now.”

She freezes, staring at him. “You- you have?” She can barely think, her mind racing.

“Let’s sit down,” Father suggests in a slightly kinder tone, guiding her to the bed. He sits beside her, and takes her hand in his own. “I don’t want you to be frightened, Alayne. I have not given my consent to it, and I would not do so without speaking to you first.”

“But- but I cannot-,” her opinion counts for very little, is what she wants to say. Six months ago there was an offer from the Twins. From one of Lord Frey’s bastard sons. She cannot recall which one. Apparently, it was… rather crudely put. Father was infuriated. Lady Edda told her that he burned the letter without even deigning to reply. But had Father been an altogether different sort of man… he might have said yes. And she would have seen herself at the Twins within the month, wed to a stranger, to fade into obscurity.

“The offer is from Ser Robert Paege. You have met him before,” he says gently.

She has. He is friends with her uncle. He is nineteen years of age. His father is Ser Halmon Paege. His two older sisters are married to Freys. Alayne makes it her mission to know as much about everyone associated with her family as possible. But she had not thought- she has met Ser Robert, perhaps even danced with him once or twice, but they have never shared anything more than that.

“He… he wants to marry me?” 

“Not now,” says Father immediately. “Robert knows well enough that I would not permit it. There are five years between the two of you, and although you think you are ready- you are still very young, Alayne. As is he, though he is knighted and of age. If I accepted, you would be betrothed for three years, and marry when you are seventeen.” 

He pauses. “House Paege are landed knights, as you know. They are nobility, aye, but they are not lords. You would not be a lady, if you wed him, but Mistress Paege. You would have men at arms and servants, but House Paege’s holdings are small. Nor are they particularly wealthy.”

“I would bring prestige to their house,” says Alayne, thoughtfully.

“Yes,” says Father. “You would. You may not be legitimate, but you are still recognized as part of House Tully, a great house. That is no small thing. Robert acknowledged that in his letter. But he also… expressed a fondness for you in general. I have spoken with Edmure, who knows him better than I. I am inclined to believe his intentions are genuine, and that he would afford you every respect and courtesy as his wife.”

“But…” There must be a but, Alayne thinks. Some sort of catch. Something to ruin this, for it seems like a maddening dream.

“But I would ask you what you desire,” Father looks at her steadily. “I do not want you to feel as though this were your only chance. You will have other offers, Alayne. And- and even if you should not wish to marry- as long as I live, as long as Robb lives, you will always have a place here. You will always be wanted. All I want is to see you happy.”

He squeezes her hand. “So consider it. Ser Robert will wait. As will I.”

She barely hears anything past ‘happy’, for she has thrown herself at him, breaking down and sobbing into his chest like a child, like she has not in years. Father seems shocked for a moment, before he wraps his arms around her in kind, and presses a kiss to her hair. “You will make me proud no matter what you choose,” he whispers, and Alayne feels the ember in her heart burn all the brighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alayne has probably become the inadvertent break out star of this fic. I enjoyed writing from her POV much more than expected. One guess as to who wrote that letter!


	14. Robb I

298 AC - RIVERRUN

Robb finds himself faced with the carved oaken door to the godswood for the first time in what feels like years. He pauses in front of it for a moment, ruefully reflecting on the state of his clothes; he is worn and mud-splattered from the ride from Seagard to Riverrun. They made good time, given that the recent spate of summer rain storms has finally ceased, but he will be glad to sleep in a real bed tonight. Still, he does not think his siblings will mind his current state.

This will be the first time he has seen them in this very new year, after all.

Fighting back a smile, he pushes open the door and steps inside. Adjusting to the change in light, for there is much more shade in the woody godswood than in the rest of the castle, he steps forward softly, hearing distant chatter. Perhaps he can sneak up on them, give the girls a proper fright. He has missed them all. The other boys at Seagard would mock him- he hopes to be knighted by this time next year, and yet he is happiest not in the training yard but around his brothers and sisters.

If that unmans him, so be it. Robb enjoys the thrill of a fight, and he is intent on proving himself on the tourney field, but a sword and a shield cannot replace a family and a home. Father taught him that. He passes through a small grove of trees, nearing the noises, when a sudden rustling makes him pause and look up. “What-,”

Bran drops down onto him with a delighted cry, knocking them both to the ground. “Robb!”

Winded, Robb coughs and gasps beneath him; Bran is a skinny, knobby-kneed thing, but his elbow has found a home in Robb’s chest, and he is far past the age of riding around on Robb’s shoulders. That place of honor goes to Rickon now, although Robb’s youngest sibling would much rather run circles around him than be carried about. Rickon is not one for sitting still anymore than Arya is one for the high harp.

“You’re back,” crows Bran, delighted, springing up to his feet as Robb recovers from the ambush. “Father didn’t think you’d be here until tonight or tomorrow.”

“Had his doubts, did he?” Robb snorts. “You should know better- I’m the best horseman south of The Twins.”

Bran grins. “Liar.”

At that, Robb takes a step towards him in mock threat, and Bran snickers and races off between the trees, yelling for their siblings. “Brandon! It was- supposed- to be,” Robb tears after him, leaping over a small burbling stream, “a- surprise!” When he finally catches up to him it is far too late for that; Bran is doubled over, panting for breath besides a shocked Arya, while Sansa and Alayne look on a few feet away from where they are sitting, skirts spread out on the mossy ground. 

“ROBB!” comes a sudden shriek, and something small and terrifying collides with Robb’s legs, nearly toppling him once more. Rickon practically climbs up him, shouting and bellowing, until Robb grabs him, hoists him under one arm, and spins them in a circle, before dropping him back to the ground. “Am I related to a pack of wild animals?” he jests as the rest of them crowd around.

Arya reaches him next, launching herself into his arms, and Sansa and Alayne are not far behind, both offering much more subdued but still affectionate embraces. “Look at our little Robbie, nearly grown,” Alayne teases, having never lost her love of mocking him, before she pressed a sweet kiss to his cheek. “Excited for tonight, brother?”

“I don’t know,” says Robb, “are you? I may have spied your Paege boy on my way here-,”

Alayne swats at him, but smiles ever wider. “Boy? He is six years your elder, you insolent child.”

“Insolent child? I will be lord of Riverrun-,”

“But you will never stop being Alayne’s biggest nuisance,” Sansa teases, and Robb looks at her in horror. “Traitor.”

“She just knows how to pick the winning side,” smirks Alayne, wrapping an arm around a giggling Sansa’s shoulders. “She won’t make your mistakes.”

“I could pick you up and toss you clear into that stream,” Robb threatens; Alayne has always been so short, but she sticks her tongue out at him childishly and instead, sits back down on the ground. “Come and tell us your latest escapades from Seagard, brother. You know how fond I am of the gossip.”

“Yes, you must,” Sansa tugs at his hand. “Is Lord Mallister going to King’s Landing for the prince’s name day tourney? I begged and begged Father for us to go, but he says it’s too short notice-,”

“I’d rather see Winterfell again,” Arya interrupts, “I was too little last time, I don’t remember at all-,”

“Neither do I,” cuts in Bran, “but I want to see a real tourney. With all the famous knights, like the Kingslayer-,”

“Gods,” Robb sighs, leaning back on the ground. “How I have missed hearing you all talk over each other.” Rickon promptly scrambles on top of him, causing him to laugh and groan. “No, Lord Mallister will not be attending the prince’s tourney. But there will be plenty of others- Father has always said the king is fond of tourneys.”

“And ale,” says Alayne, barely suppressing a smile. “And women-,”

Bran’s eyes widen, while Sansa and Arya adopt almost identical expressions of disgust.

“The king is fond of merrymaking in general,” Robb says quickly, to put a swift end to his particular conversation. “I am sure you will see the capitol someday, Sansa. And as for Winterfell- who knows? It is still summer. Father and Mother might wish to travel north again before autumn comes.”

“It’s always been summer,” Arya rolls over in the grass, ignoring Sansa’s narrowed eyes when she bumps into her. “I’ve never even seen the leaves change.”

“None of us have,” Robb points out. “Alayne and I were born in spring, and the rest of you in the Long Summer. But we will- we all will. Maester Luwin does not think it will be longer than another year or so.”

“I want to see snow again,” says Bran, gaze drifting up to the endless summer sky above them, full of hazy clouds drifting across the sun. 

“You won’t be able to go swimming and fishing in the winter,” Alayne tells him and Arya. “Or hawking with your mother, or out riding- there will be little to do but sit indoors and tell stories by the fire. And sew,” she adds with a pointed look to Arya, whose expression of immediate dismay makes Robb want to laugh.

“I’m going to have a sword someday, like cousin Joss,” she declares, face shifting to stony determination.

“Joss’ mother is a Mormont, that’s different,” Sansa exclaims. “It’s part of their culture. What would father’s bannermen think of one of his daughters fighting?”

“Who cares what they think?” Arya scoffs. “Besides, Mother is a Stark. She’s still of the North, even if she lives here. And everyone says Aunt Lyanna wanted to be a great warrior-,”

“How would you know?” Bran’s brow furrows. “You never met her.”

“Mother says I’m a little like her,” Arya says defensively.

Alayne sighs dramatically. “Come off it, both of you. You’re being silly. If Arya wants a sword, she’ll find some way of getting one, no matter what Father says.” She reaches over and tickles Arya, making her yelp with laughter, and then grins at Sansa. “And if Sansa wants to see the capitol, one day she shall, and all the knights will declare her their queen of love and beauty.” 

“Ah, our sister the seer,” snorts Robb, still smiling, and then he ducks to avoid the handful of grass and leaves she flings his way. 

“I am a witch,” Alayne declares with an impish smile, “and I’ll read your fortune, brother mine.” She snatches up his palm to Arya and Bran’s delight, both of them snickering, while Sansa pulls Rickon into her lap, her chin pressed atop his head of wild red curls. “What’s this?” Alayne gives a little mock gasp. “I see great love in your future- why, it’s salmon for dinner, your favorite!”

At that, Robb rips his hand away, and Sansa is breathless with giggles. “What’s that mean?” Bran demands in confusion, looking to Arya, who rolls her eyes. “Salmon’s House Mooton’s sigil,” she explains impatiently, “she means Nell!”

“Nell’s not a fish,” Rickon protests, as Robb gets to his feet, flushing. It’s not that he’s nervous about tonight- but he’s not as confident as he should be, either. He’s never been timid around girls, exactly, but everyone seems to assume he has a lot more… experience than he actually does. In truth, although he’s had his fair share of kisses, some more innocent than others, he’s yet to lay with any woman, although he’s had his share of opportunities. 

But Father has always impressed upon him the fact that woman might make themselves ‘available’ to him not because they think him handsome or his clothes fine or his jests funny but because he is heir to Riverrun after his father and will someday rule the Riverlands. It has nothing to do with his appeal as a person, only his status and future title. Robb imagines some boys might still not care, so long as they were wanted, but to him it matters. If that makes him a sentimental fool, so be it. 

So perhaps it is because he cares what Nell Mooton thinks of him. Eleanor is about to turn twelve, around the same age as Sansa. He thinks her pretty, with his chestnut brown ringlets and her smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks, but it is still hard to picture them wed, which will not be for years. Their betrothal will only be officially announced tonight, and Father says he would not see them wed until Nell is at least sixteen, although her father would have agreed to it earlier.

Robb has no urge to marry a girl before she comes of age anyways. Mother says the men who prattle on about girls of eighteen or nineteen being old maids are lecherous fools, and that she was no worse off for being twenty when she wed Father, and he eighteen. Of course, their wedding was done to seal a treaty, not as a the result of a betrothal, but… Robb cannot picture himself siring a child anytime soon. It would seem so odd. His siblings are still so young, aside from Alayne, to think of Aunt Sansa or Uncle Bran seems ridiculous.

But he does want to make a good impression, even though he knows Nell and she knows him. She practically grew up at Riverrun, she has been here so often, and she is one of Sansa’s fondest friends, even if her house supported the Mad King during the Rebellion. It is part of why Father wants Robb to take her to wife. 

That, and House Mooton’s riches. Robb knows there was some talk of a potential match between him and his cousin Alys, eldest daughter of Jon Arryn and his aunt Lysa, but Father wants his children to marry within the Riverlands, he says, to help bridge the rifts from the war and to keep the ‘foundations strong’. 

He has washed and changed for dinner and is alone in his bedchamber for what seems like the first time in years when Mother comes in. He saw her and Father briefly upon his arrival hours ago, but now she smiles openly when she sees him, no longer playing the part of the dignified lady, and comes to him with her arms outstretched. Robb is not ashamed to embrace her like a child, although he is almost as tall as her now. “I’ve missed you, Mother.”

She smooths back his hair from his brow. “And I you. It has been far too long. You shall have to stay at least a month this time, before I let Ser Jason take you away again.”

Robb smiles at her, shaking his head. “You know I will be fifteen this year, and of age in the next. Then you shall never be rid of me again, Mother. You’ll grow sick and tired of seeing me lounging around.”

“My son, lazy?” she squeezes his shoulder. “Never. Although I will say it will be far quieter here when Bran goes to Raventree.” Her voice hardens slightly at that, and he feels slightly awkward. Father would see Bran go to foster after his eighth nameday, in five months time. That is two years younger than when Robb went, but Father thinks Bran is ready and that it is time; boys traditionally go to be pages at seven or eight, after all. Mother… will not refuse to send him, but he knows she is not pleased, would see her second son home a while longer if she could.

“He will like it there,” Robb says, trying to cheer her. “There are plenty of places to climb. And the godswood is magnificent- you have seen it, Mother?”

“We visited when I was pregnant with him,” she admits. “It is as close to Northern as I have ever found in your father’s homeland. You are right, of course. As is he. Bran will do very well there, and he is so eager to become a squire someday- he idolizes you, you know.”

Robb laughs at that. “He idolizes every man he meets with a sword. He has been begging to be Uncle Ed’s page since he could speak.”

“I know very little of knights, compared to most ladies,” Mother takes his arm as they leave the room, “but I think you and he will make fine ones.”

Robb hesitates as they step out into the hall. “It will not… bother you, when I do take my rites, and swear vows before the Seven?”

She pauses, considering, and tucks a lock of fine brown hair behind her ear. “I will not lie to you, as a girl I never saw myself married to a man who prayed to the new gods, or with children who would become knights with their rites. But you were raised in both faiths, and I do not think my gods would scorn you for swearing to defend the weak and protect the innocent. I know you will keep any vows you make, whatever they may be. You are your father’s son through and through.”

Mother seems about to say more, when Father himself rounds the corner. “There you are,” he takes Mother’s hand, kissing her on the cheek. “I was wondering where my wife and firstborn had gone. The feast is about to begin, they are only waiting on our entrance.” Seeing the look on Robb’s face, he chuckles, “Nerves struck at last, have they? Chin up, Robb. Imagine how I felt on my wedding day, seeing your mother at the altar like the Maiden herself.”

“You,” accuses Mother, cheeks gone rosy, “have become a shameless flatterer in your old age, my lord.”

“As you say, my lady,” he clasps her hand in his own, and nods to Robb. “Go ahead, then.”

Robb stares at both of them, gazing proudly at him, and is struck by this moment, for some odd reason or fancy. He thinks perhaps this is the last time they may look at him and see him as a child. But he’s overthinking things, he knows. This is hardly the first and last feast they will ever attend as a family. There will be a hundred, no, a thousand more, even when he and Alayne and Sansa are wed with children of their own, even when Arya walks in with a sword strapped across the back of her dress, even when Bran is a knight of legends, even when Rickon is not so little nor so wild anymore.

But for now he simply smiles at his parents, and then turns and walks forward towards his waiting siblings, their faces washed in torchlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all, folks. Not a very dramatic or necessarily exciting end, I know, but I had wanted to end on a Robb chapter so I could 'test out' writing from his POV for a future fic, and I did want the chance to show the Tullys as a happy family announcing Robb's betrothal in 298 AC, rather than, you know, discovering a dead direwolf and whatnot. Thank you all for your enthusiastic support and comments for this fic, which I did not expect to receive very much attention due to the rather niche AU that it is. I am open to ASOIAF related prompts, so suggest away!


End file.
